The Legend In The Concrete
by Garmonbozia
Summary: 8/13   June is busting out all over in Dublin, great blue gardens shooting right up through the streets.  Strange enough, considering it's October...
1. Chapter 1

I try leaving them. They might as well enjoy themselves. God alone knows where River is; I owe them that much at least. There are things I can be getting on with in the meantime and should I require their assistance at any time I can shout very, very loudly. While Dublin is in fresh blue bloom, the Ponds can have a good time.

But they do so love to follow me around. I have _honestly_ checked my boot heels for magnets on occasion, you know. Some kind of companion-attractant force generator. Something. Must be something going on.

Note to self: companion-attractant force generator is a really good idea. Stop them wandering off.

Anyway, they're not willing to let go of the adventure just yet, which I suppose should make me happy. Yay. See? There, I tried. We're going to see one Professor McDonagh, here at the College, who has his offices beyond the library. An old friend of mine. And it would have been nice to be able to speak freely with him about certain things, but he won't if there are others. Nevertheless, yay.

Here's to companion spirit.

Yeah, I'm not capitalizing that anymore.

Still nice to see him, though. McDonagh's office door doesn't open all the way anymore. There are books stacked behind that. How do I know that, if the door won't open and I can't see round it? There are books stacked everywhere, it's an educated guess. And papers, and tablets. Stone tablets. Great hunks of runic history everywhere. "Hello?" I call, slipping through the little gap there is. "Something's going to fall on you someday, you k-" I'm cut off, but the sound of the landslide behind me. Pushing too hard against the door it would seem. "Oh, God, don't be dead."

"I'm over here, y'eejit," he says. He's in the other corner. Where I could have seen him if I was looking. Finishes, "But you're tidying that up before you go." Professor McDonagh stands at little over five feet, a hooked, withered old man with a tiny white beard and tinier gold-rimmed glasses. He's stern and straight-faced when he says that, but as I watch he breaks into a grin. "How did I know you'd show up?"

"Oh, because there were great big alien trees springing up through the floor, I suppose."

It should be awkward to hug him. He gets me around the chest and it's not awkward at all. Great old gent, McDonagh.

"Wait," Pond says, "_Alien_ trees?"

"Now where was the last place you saw a blue tree, missus?" McDonagh lets go of me to take Pond by the hand. "And who would you be?"

I make brief introductions, and make very clear that those two are married, because I know what he's like. McDonagh invites us all to be seated, which mostly involves perching on desk edges or those precarious stacks. I want a photograph of Amy on top of a pile of proto-Celtic dictionaries. I want to tag it 'The Pixie of the Library' and sneak it onto her Facebook page. But that's a horrible, silly little whim and I shake it off, and I absolutely don't think about it the entire time she's sitting there.

Rory is shaking his head, slightly open-mouthed. Either he's thinking the same thing I am about getting a photo of Pond, which is unlikely, or he disbelieves something. I look at him, nod a prompt. Best get this out of the way before we discuss anything actually serious, "Yes?"

"You've got a professor in every port."

McDonagh cuts in, all smiling and sly, "Ah, but he only takes the best with him. Never would let me into that box of his."

"Don't start that again," I tell him and, satisfied that Rory's quite done, get down to business. "So, alien trees aside or kept for later, I do need to ask you something."

"Anything you want."

"Where are we on contacting the Tir?" He stops. Plain as subtitles, his expression says, 'Anything but that.' "It's important, McDonagh, they've got a friend of ours. A very important friend." Not in and of herself, you understand, but very important in that I followed her instead of River and I have to make good on _something_, have to do _something_ right. And McDonagh's been working on this for more years than either of us cares to count, so it's difficult to understand just why he chooses now to turn so standoffish.

"Look out the window, Doctor. They're contacting us."

A couple of inches more and the white-leaved branch is going to be coming _through_ the window.

"That's them?"  
>"That's exactly them. That's Tirinnanoc in the Trinity courtyard. Other places, too."<p>

"There are more of these gardens?"

"One at the Ha'penny Bridge, one at the end of Grafton Street. Molly Malone's got more shelter than she ever had." His eyes shift and refocus, over my shoulder. That sly, one-sided smile again. "Ah, bless their cotton socks, they're _gone_."

"Completely," Rory agrees. Pond nods along.

McDonagh looks at me. "Do you want to explain to them?"

"No, you go ahead. You have that Irish lilt in your voice, everything sounds like a bedtime story; it's wonderful." Also, there are parts of it I couldn't really tell, due to my having absolutely no clue. But it just would not do to say such things in front of companions. Never hear the end of it.

McDonagh settles himself, breathes deep and begins. "Once upon a time, way, way back, when Dublin was a couple of huts next to a river, there was a mystic settlement in roughly the same place. Tirinnanoc, the home of the Tir. A beautiful people who never aged or died, who lived for pleasure and wanted for nothing."

"Oh, Professor, _don't_," Pond moans, eyes closed and jealously dreaming.

"Well, you see, the other humans felt like you do. Got envious and decided to drive the Tir out. So the Tir went away, and they took Tirinnanoc with them. They disappeared, and faded amongst the humans into simple myth, a fairy story."

"So where did they go?" Rory asks. I told you he'd make it sound like a fairytale; they're hanging on his every word, like children who don't want to go to sleep yet.

"Nowhere," McDonagh grins.

"But _you_ said-"

"They're still here."

"Oh, you old tease," I snap at him, and turn in my chair to explain to Rory, "They moved out of time, not out of the area. Made themselves a little pocket of the universe in the same spot as they were before, just out of the way of the humans."

"Like an alternate universe," he tries.

"No, God, _heavens_ Rory, no, don't even say that, let's not talk about alternate universes, it's not like that at all, don't think about those, don't mention those, just-"

"Doctor?"

"…No."

Now, for you at home, I'll make it simple. Dublin is Tirinnanoc, and Tirinnanoc is Dublin. It's just that the two never meet. Like parallel lines. Except, apparently, out in that courtyard and at two other places in town, they've met. Crossed over. A crowd of Spanish tourists are having their photograph taken hanging from the lower boughs of an alien civilization that got here before the Romans did, and probably before Ireland broke off from that little corner around England and Wales.

All of this just as Jessica is kidnapped by one of the Tir.

Coincidences are great, aren't they? I like coincidences. Well, some of them. Ones like this, that make sense and have no missing links, those are _great_.

"Just the gardens?" I ask McDonagh, "No sign of the Tir themselves?"

He should say yes. That would mean they were going back and forth. That would mean crossing back and forth had gotten a lot easier since the last time it was attempted.

"No."

Can't have it all, I suppose.

"Well, there've been… _reports_."

"Reports? What reports? I'll take a report, we could look into a report, couldn't we, Ponds? What kind of report? Damn it, man, _report_."

"The Morrigan. Reports of The Morrigan appearing at the gardens, on horseback, in full leather armour."

Pond asks what a Morrigan is. Rory, in that blank-faced way he has when he's referencing the life he never had anymore, fills automatically, "The heathen war goddess of the Celt barbarians."

McDonagh shifts. Barely perceptible, a slight raising of the brow, a tightening of the usual benevolent smile. I lean forward and pat his arm. "Ignore him, he was a centurion for a while."

McDonagh shifts again. Funny feeling I might have made things worse than they already were. "Was he now?" is all McDonagh says, and settles back in his chair, cautiously eyeing Rory. "But yes, that's who they're saying it is. Then again we've had a plague of pagans and hippies descend upon us since they grew, so God only knows what they think they've seen."

"Oh, don't be such a cynic. I think the Morrigan's a wonderful idea. I think we should go and look for the Morrigan. I think the Ponds should start looking for the Morrigan out in the hallway until I join them." Not, you understand, the subtlest hint I've ever dropped, and yet it still takes them a good five seconds of silence before they pick it up.

My only thought between implying that they should leave and them leaving occurs when Rory helps Pond down from those books. 'There goes the photo op,' is my thought. Then the door closes behind them, and a former cairn stone slumps emphatically against the jamb.

"What's the matter?" I say to McDonagh.

He gets up and goes to the window rather than answering. I stand near him, but give him his space. I know, and know well, the look in his eyes as he gazes on that garden, on the old world bursting into the new. A place lost. He raises his hand, as if to set it against the glass, then changes his mind about even that much contact.

"You're not to be blamed, you'd no way of knowing. But I gave up trying to talk to the Tir a long lot of years ago."

"What? _Why_? I thought it was all you'd ever wanted since-"

"And it was. But think about it, Doctor, just step back and think about it for a minute. What good was it ever going to do for me?"

I want not to understand that. I want to tell him off for giving up, for being so defeatist. But the truth is I know the reasons behind it and I can't blame him. It becomes very, very difficult indeed to swallow the lump in my throat. More difficult still to put a hand on his shoulder and ask, "But can you still help _me_?"

It's clear, everything about him makes it clear, that he doesn't want to. This is a part of his long life he has walked away from and does not want to touch. Then again, it is currently tapping at his office window in every little breeze. After a moment's consideration, he places his hand over mine and nods. "Give me an hour or two. I still have the research, I'll dig it out for you. I'm afraid that's the best I can do."

Less than I'd hoped and more than I could ask of him. I thank him and go back to the Ponds.


	2. Chapter 2

Pond has acquired a new handbag. Not sure how that happened. They were in the office and then I sent them out of the office. Roughly ninety seconds later I joined them outside that door and Pond had a new handbag. It's quite nice, actually, sort of messenger style, and the front flap is a shiny map of Dublin that you could draw on with a whiteboard marker, in case you forgot your way home and had to work it out by the position of the stars and make a note so you wouldn't forget again. I ask her where she got it.

"From a student. It's a mapbag."

"A map bag?"

"Mapbag."

"You mugged a student for a map bag?"

"Mapbag, Doctor. And no, she gave it to me. She's been inspired by the gardens. Giving away all her earthly possessions. Including her mapbag."

"Stop saying it like that. Rory, _tell_ her."

"Tell her she can't keep it and I'll tell her."

I consider it. Lift up that shiny front flap and tilt it, and in fairness to it, it does tell me what direction to head in to the next nearest garden. I can't condemn it for that. What if it has more information, could be of more use to me? Has Rory considered that perhaps, should we reject it, it might find its way into the hands of our enemies and give up its secrets to them in an act of bitter petty vengeance? I drop it, point a warning finger at Pond and lead off. She laughs a quiet victory behind me. Let her have it. We have to go.

The Morrigan last appeared at the Ha'penny Bridge, just last night, so that's where we're headed.

Now, I've been here before. The Ha'penny Bridge, the Penny Bridge, the Steel Bridge, the Liffey Bridge, gorgeous wrought iron thing, painted white, got pergolas and parapets and all sorts. My point being, it's been around a while and it's gorgeous on its own.

Right now there is another of those glorious blue trees rising up out of the river, right at the centre of it. And the garden, it seems, grows from the tree, treats the entire structure as a trellis. It looks magical, like you'd walk through it and come out in some kind of fairy glade. We know, however, that won't happen. For one, these gardens have been here for days and nobody's disappeared yet and for another my life is never that easy.

It's also a relatively small search area when you're looking for a woman on horseback. I can tell you from here she's probably moved on.

What's left to do, then, but to go amongst what Professor McDonagh so politely termed the plague of pagans and hippies and students in the middle of semi-religious conversions and ask around? But that would take time. I cast my eyes over all the dozens milling about and choose the most promising candidate. An older woman, with braided hair and numerous loose floaty layers on. Flowers in her hair and a book in her hand. A pagan hippy student. Perfect.

We start towards her together, the three of us. Halfway there something long and thin, like a blonde Jessica only smiling, wraps herself around Rory from behind and asks him, "Don't you feel it, mister? Doesn't it make your heart go all big and funny?" Pond immediately begins to deal with that. She unlaces fingers with the speed and efficiency of undoing bootstraps and casts her off. In the process she calls down the wrath of the hippy and her kindred, but the two of them, together, they can deal with that.

My intended target is looking on, sitting crosslegged against the bole of the tree where it's taken a lump out of the railings. She is clearly their queen. I sit down next to her, and because she is shaking her head and tutting like a nun, I do the same.

"I know," I begin. "They just can't let the way of this place take over. Can't just go with it."

"You can talk," she hisses at me. "You and your big boots. And you don't look where you're stepping at all. Do you know how much of this place you crushed on your way over here?"

"Well, I have big feet, that's all." Nonetheless, in order to appease her, I take off my boots. And yes, there's one little red flower there, crushed into the treads, maybe two. Four or five, but that's it, I promise. "You look like you're in charge here."

"I'm keeping an eye," she says, modestly.

"And how did you come into this illustrious post?"

"I took it. Somebody had to, after last night. She did say not to make her come back."

Aha, and bingo, and _hello_ and other related exclamations regarding imminent solution. "Who's that then? We just arrived."

Below her notice, just so that nobody ends up in the Liffey, I sonic the copper torc one of the Pagans is wearing so it looks like Pond just knocked him flat. That makes those peaceful, non-violent moaning-experts step back and think.

"The Morrigan. She came in the night. One of them lunatics over there wanted to carve his name in this here tree behind me. And she was having none of it. Nearly knocked his block off."

"The goddess of war, defending a tree. Now that is interesting… Did she say anything else?"

"She never _said_ a word. Just rode in, battered that fella's pan in, did what she came to do and rode out again."

I should have been a detective, you know. I missed my calling. Look at me, just sitting here, just obliging, and her telling me everything. This is a talent I should perhaps properly investigate and develop, could well prove useful. But then people do generally like me and in most cases I get this far on natural charm, so what the hell

"What do you mean, what she came to do?"

Much like the Morrigan herself, my ageing contact does not speak, but points. Out of the new-grown thicket, back into the light we walked in from. At something that was right over my head and I didn't notice it. On the very end of one of the very outmost branches, it couldn't stand out more. There's a blue ribbon tied in a bow, a much darker shade than the branch itself. A very particular shade, in fact. And hanging from it, out of the white leaves is a gleaming red apple.

In the future, when she was an escaped prisoner at Stormcage and I borrowed her file from Governor Bracewell's desk and never put it back, Jessica's surname was down as Apple.

I thank the Queen of the Forest and get up, shoes in hand. Time to rescue the Ponds anyway. It's the students that have turned nasty more than any of the others. This is their excuse for a day off and nobody's going to ruin that for them. I try to walk through the little mob they're gathering, all of it building up to a nice rolling boil, and as I slip past, muttering along with yes, how terrible they are and I know, loosen up, poor excuses for human beings and all the rest of it, I try to just grab the Ponds along with.

Quite proud of them, actually. They don't stop and make nuisances of themselves, for once, about me leaving them defenceless. No, Mr Pond's too busy trying to look like he was manly and was coping just fine, and Mrs Pond is busy stroking her mapbag to make sure it's alright. Oh, look, she's got me doing it now.

As part of his macho bravado act, Rory sniffs and hitches his belt and says, "So did you find anything out?"

"Late last night the Morrigan swung by and started putting up her Christmas decorations. Then she realized it was a bit early and just left it at the one she'd already done. And there it is."

"That's not a bauble, that's an…" Penny drops. "What does it mean?"

"Not a clue. Well, no, specifically, _a_ clue. That's a clue, the apple itself is a clue, but a clue to what? To do with Jessica, yes, almost certainly, but… what's wrong with this picture?"

"Apples don't grow on blue alien trees?"

"Thank you, Pond, yes but… she must've climbed."

"Pardon?"

"The Morrigan, whoever she is, she must have climbed up the bars to put that where it is. Right out on the end of that particular branch. Must have been leaning and stretching and all sorts."

Pond finally stops rubbing the smudges from that bloody bag to stare at me. "Are we fantasizing about a mythological figure now?"

The bag.

With one hand I snatch it from her and the other shakes my marker out of my pocket. She cries out, of course, she defends, but I flap her off just that once and she packs it in. It takes a moment to orientate the map correctly, but once that's done it all makes perfect sense. I draw a line from the Ha'penny Bridge, straight out as far as the map allows.

"It's not a clue," I tell them. "It's a bearing." Pond tries to grab the bag back from me. I hold onto it by the strap and reel her in. "You're coming with me."

"Where?"

"Back to Trinity, where _I'm_ willing to bet there's another line just waiting to be drawn. Rory, go and see the Trollop, tell her I said hello."

Rory and his doting wife, in perfect unison and in entirely different tones, "Pardon?"

"The Trollop with the Scallops. The Dish with the Fish. The Tart with the Cart." They stare back blankly. That's alright, that's fair. They didn't know her in life. I'll bring them back some time and introduce them all. For now, "Molly Malone. She's a statue now, at Grafton Street. Consult the bag before you go or ask anybody, it's rather famous and it has a blue alien tree growing out of it."

"Right," he says. And he would run off then, all dynamic and all, only he doesn't know where to go. Pond and I, by either side of the strap, lift up the bag, and I point with the market.

"When you get there, find the apple and walk away from it in a straight line. We'll meet you somewhere along the way."

He nods dutifully and goes about it.

There's something I should have said. Loath as I am to do it in front of his wife, I turn and shout him back. "Rory! If Molly starts talking about cockles and mussels, best just walk away, alright?"


	3. Chapter 3

I was right. Don't bother acting surprised, we both know it happens a lot. I'm not offended, absolutely understandable. I'm just stating the simple fact that that I was right; there was another apple on the tree at Trinity. And when they weren't alternately assaulting us or cooing over the Mapbag, the assembled masses did happen to mention a rider in armour. No clearer description than we already had but it confirms, at least, that this Morrigan is very probably working alone and is going to very great lengths to place her clues.

Drawing another line along this new bearing brought Pond and I here, where the two ways meet. A fountain at St Stephen's Green where the three Fates stand in bronze, one behind the other. When Rory finds his bearing from Molly Malone and walks it, he will undoubtedly meet us here. Undoubtedly. Everything's been right on our end so far, so it's on him now.

Except, well, it's been a while.

"Are you sure we're in the right place?"

"Is this where the two lines cross on the map?"

"Yes."

"Then we're in the right place. He'll be here, stop worrying."

"I am worried though."

"Well he can't exactly walk in a straight line and he's not much of a fence-scaler, your husband. He's probably looking for a gate."

"What do you mean Rory's not a fence-scaler? Are you saying he's not adventurous? Because I'm telling you, Doctor-"  
>"-<em>Things I never, ever needed to even suffer the implication of, thank you<em>. And that's not what I'm saying at all, just that he's a bit of a… a rule-follower."

"Rory is _not_ a rule-follower!"

"He is a bit."

"He's n-" She cuts off because her phone rings. "It's him."

"I will bet you ten of your fine earth pounds that Roranicus is lost."

Before she answers, she actually pulls a ten pound note from her skirt pocket and holds it up to me. Looking totally assured, looking forward to putting me down. Then, "Hello?" Whatever Rory says, Pond goes limp. Her face falls, lip trembling. That one hand, that ten pound note, first falls down by her side and then swings out to me. And she says, "Are you alright, are you safe?"

"Amy?"

She shushes me, still listening. "Just hold on, we're coming, alright? Here, talk to the Doctor," and she shoves the phone at me, saying, "Tell him we're coming?" Pleading, actually. I take the phone from her.

"Rory? Where are you?"

"Um… Tirinnanoc, I think."

Which would explain Pond's concern, certainly. And it doesn't technically count as lost, so I reach out and tuck the tenner back into her pocket. We're going to get him anyway, so it doesn't really feel like a fair bet.

"Green fields, blue trees, lots of gents like the one that took Jessica?"

"Yeah, that's it. Should I ask about-"

"No, Rory, don't start out by calling them kidnappers; that's not the diplomatic way at all. What exactly happened?"

"Well, I told that statue you said hello, like you said to, and as I leaned up to her I saw the apple on the far side. And I went around her little fish cart thing, and somebody shoved me, and then I wasn't in Dublin anymore."

"Shoved you?"

"Yeah. In the back, between my shoulders. I felt hands shove me."

"But the statue was behind you."

"…Oh my God, Doctor, did Molly Malone push me into an alternate universe?"

"Probably not, no, and _stop _saying 'alternate universe', would you? Listen, don't hide, makes you look like you've done something wrong. Just keep your shoulders back and ask to meet whoever's in charge."

There's a long pause and it's the oddest thing, but I'd swear, across all kinds of temporal shifting and a hell of a lot of space, over a frankly impossible pocket of phone service, I can _hear_ disdain down the line. "'Take me to your leader', Doctor?"

"It's only a cliché because it works. Anyway, chin up, Rory, shouldn't be long. Here, say something comforting to Pond, would you? She's gone all trembly round the lips and I haven't time for a tantrum just now."

I'm leaving that to him. That's his job. Not that there's exactly a job description for a companion, but if one were ever to be formulated for Rory, it would involve reliability and comic relief and the puncturing of awkward atmospheres, and above all the emotional maintenance of Mrs Pond.

_My_ job description, on the other hand, primarily consists of running around after them all. Not complaining, of course, love them all dearly, wonderful things, humans are_. _ Wouldn't change them for the world.

Because they're having a personal moment, Pond paces away from me, around the edge of the fountain. Stops there, round behind one of the Fates. Stops suddenly, looking out. Then goes ankle deep in water to look over the top of the cast bronze, pulling herself up against it. I wouldn't even bother wondering what she's up to, normally. Whenever it starts to look dangerous I'll step in.

Except, with one arm hooked around Alecto's head to hold herself up, she raises the other into the air, waving madly. "Rory! Rory, over here!" I look over my shoulder, in what seems to be the same direction. She's shouting at a hedge, you know. A full, proud and well-tended hedge, but it bears _no_ resemblance whatever to Rory. Still shouting, though, "Rory! Over here, with your big stupid face!"

It's finally happened. I always knew it would. Only a matter of time before I put somebody through too much, showed them too much of the world, took their true love from them once too often. It's happened. I've finally driven a companion mad. "Amelia?" I put a foot on the edge of the fountain and try and pull her back.

"Yeah! The way you're going! Just follow my voice! Doctor, he can't see me, why can't he see me?"

"Because you're a crazy person climbing a fountain, Amelia, now let's just get you down and tranquilized and I'll fix everything, I promise."

"What are you talking about? _Look_!"

Rory walks out of the hedge. Or through it. Or, more specifically, he walks across open space in a world running parallel to this one (which is, nonetheless, not a parallel universe and not to be described as such in my presence), and ends up in roughly the same place as us. That's how it happened; when Amy walked around the fountain, she ended up on the same bearing as him, walking the same line drawn on the map. That's how she saw him. A perfect view across fate and straight to Rory.

"Amy?" He can see her now. Something about the space around the fountain, here where the ways meet, somehow it works here. And she climbs down from the statue and tries to run to him, splashing.

I cry out and reach forward, grabbing her back by the strap of her bag. Unfortunately all the effort pulls me right over one bronze head and down on my bell in the water. At least the whole ridiculous sight stops them. At least they don't get any closer together. "Don't touch him! He's not here, he's still in Tirinnanoc. Rory, you're on the other side of shifting time. Now you might reach out and touch and the time between is no more than a minute, and that would be fine. But you might reach out across a thousand years and then, very probably, you'll both turn to dust. But there's no way of knowing which."

Rory says her name. While I'm climbing out of the water, something happens between them. Honestly, they do this all the time, and I always miss it. I want to know if the same thing would work on River. This strange, silent thing, whatever it is, happens, and suddenly neither of them are in any way afraid any more. Amy reaches down and pulls me up, asks, straight and stern, "What do we have to do?"

I'm trying to think how to phrase it.

"Oh, don't tell me you don't know, that's your clueless face, take that face off _right_ now, Doctor."

"Well I can't help it, I _don't_. But I know you and I are going to get Professor McDonagh, and Rory's going to find a gentleman called the Rigfennid. That's Rig, like to fix or cheat, Fen like marshland, Nid like… Nid. Rigfennid. And then we're all going to come back to this spot. If anybody should know what to do it'll be those two."

"Could you maybe spell Ridgefendy?"

"The _leader_, Rory, 'Take me to your leader'."


	4. Chapter 4

Ours should be the easy part. Pond's giving me the most horrible look right now, implying that she thinks so too. She is even more perplexed than I am at the fact that it's not going so smoothly as it should have.

Theoretically, all we had to do was run back to Trinity, find McDonagh and bring him with us for a nice stroll in the park and the culmination of his life's work. Easy peasy. You'd think he'd be up and running fast as his frail little legs could carry him. Admittedly not fast, but everything is relative. Faster than he's moved in a long lot of years, certainly.

He hasn't, though. Doesn't really seem up for it.

"More your bag, Doctor," he says to me, "Parlay with alien civilizations."

"Yes, Professor, but what could be more your bag than crossing a human back over from that side of the veil?"

"I told you before, I gave up on all that."

"Pond hasn't. Pond's got a husband over there."

Pond is tugging at my sleeve, now that we've said all of this in front of her. "What do you mean? What's the problem with crossing Rory back over? He got there alright, didn't he?"

"Everything's going to be fine."  
>"I'm not a little girl anymore, that doesn't make me feel better."<p>

"But I'm _trying_, aren't I, and it's the effort that counts. Professor, we can _speak_ to the other side, come for that, if nothing else!"

"No!" he shouts. Stronger, louder, that I would have thought his age would allow. Or his temperament. But then again, benevolent old jokers are so often a surface thing. It's an easy pretence, the kind that allays suspicion and is relatively simple to keep up, unless somebody hits an especially raw nerve. The kind you can't joke about. "Now all you needed me for was to talk to the Tir. You've got that. You're talking about moving people back and forth and I can't help you with that. Now would I even if I could."

I lean down over his desk and tell him quietly, seriously, "If this happens and you're not there, Professor, you'll regret it." And he will. And it'll kill him. He looks at me, knowing it's true and too stubborn and afraid to do anything about it. After a minute he tells me to get out. Against my better judgement, I oblige, and Pond follows.

The hall is quiet and dim, after hours. Beyond the windows the courtyard still heaves, and they have lights now and torches, a gabble of friendly conversation and laughter. Tirinnanoc gardens springing through into the real world, like nothing very bad could ever happen to you in them. Just a pity it doesn't work the other way round. Pond grabs me round to face her and demands to know what the hell is going on.

It's a fair question, really.

"Moving Rory back from Tirinnanoc is going to be a bit more difficult than I probably let you believe at first."

A hint of the old tremble in her lower lip, but she presses them steady. Growls at me, "Why?"

"Because of the shifting time. He could take one step between worlds and it might take a million years."

She stares at me, as if she didn't quite hear what I said. I have no more to say, no more to offer. Only that the ringing of her phone breaks the silence I don't know how long we'd stand like that.

"Rory?" and there's barely a tremor in her voice, barely a hint that anything could possibly be wrong.

Rory's not so calm. I'm across the hall and I can hear him.

"Stop them!" he's shouting. "Stop them _now_!"

"Rory, slow down, stop who? What is it?"

I'm on my way back to the Tardis and she's a half-step behind me and no more. I can still hear him. "I don't know what they're doing, but you have to stop them! The garden at the bridge, where we were before, they're… I don't know, but they're hurting her. She feels it."

I turn and grab the phone from her.

"Explain that last bit very quickly."

"I found Jessica."

Given the circumstances, I can't tell whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

It's infinitely quicker, though much less scenic, to take the Tardis. We land back across the road. Not because I wouldn't get closer, but because we can't – at either end of the bridge, the hippies are revolting. As far as they know how, anyway; they're chanting and they've all linked arms.

I don't elbow my way through them. Pond does, and I just follow in her wake. Best to let her do the work when she's this riled up. It makes her feel like she's getting somewhere. If she can't directly help Rory, she can at least help with what he can't do for himself.

It's when she reaches the police officers at the end of the bridge that she hits her dead end. With her long streaming hair and her mapbag, she looks just exactly like one of those students they're not letting through. Good thing I'm not altogether useless, then, isn't it? They're not keeping _me_ out; Jessica was crying.

One flash of the psychic, they all change their minds and part.

"Who are we tonight?" Pond asks.

I take a look. "Environmental health… Why would we be environmental health, how would that get us anywhere?"

Then, from the centre of the bridge, there's a roar that I'd shy from any other day. A rumble and a gnash of metal teeth, whirring gears, a low growl under a high-pitched whine. A fearsome noise that, any other day, you'd wonder what kind of monster could be making it, and it would only be with the deepest trepidation you'd go towards it.

But suddenly I know why we're environmental health and I storm direct towards the source, and Pond right at my side.

"Stop that at once!"

A chainsaw. In heavily gloved, inexpert hands. It stops when I shout. The man holding it looks up from behind plastic goggles. Another man, a much skinnier one and wearing a suit beneath a neon jacket and hard hat, comes up to me with a clipboard and demands to see the psychic paper.

"What on earth do you think you're doing here?" I say to him, in my best more-official-than-you voice.

"This tree is an obstruction on a public thoroughfare. We're cutting it back."

"On _whose_ authority?"

He squares up, tips back his head so he can look at me down the considerable length of his nose. Which is, in fact, so pointy as to give rather the effect of being at the end of a rifle sight. And yes, since you ask, I _do_ recognize that feeling, but it wasn't the Brigadier's fault. Neither of us were quite in our best senses at the time. Where was I? Oh, yes, this little menace. Clipboard.

Says, "The city council."

Don't trust anything with a clipboard. I think that's a rule. If it's not I'm going to make it one. There's one about taping over Holby City that I can scrap now that Pond's got SkyPlus.

"Well, the city council did _not_ consult with _us_, sir. It's a criminal offence to harm some of these species, did you know that? Show me the soles of your shoes, my assistant needs to check them. Pond?"

He, in some kind of shock, lifts up one foot. Pond leans down, very serious-faced, but she can't resist tugging on the shoe, making him wobble.

"Yeah," she says. Puts his foot down, stands again and says, very close to me, "Yeah, there's red there, Doctor."

"You're kidding?"

"No, red ones."

"He stepped on the red ones."

"Oh, my word…"

"What do we do, Doctor, should we call it in?"

I lift up my voice, and address the man with the chainsaw and all the other people about with handsaws and clear-up bags and brushes and all sorts, lift up both hands. "Did anybody else here stand on any red flowers?"

A few tentative hands up. Quite a number of worried looks before anybody decides to commit.

"Oh, right, that's it! That's _it_!" Pond cries. Walks towards them, shuffling with big wide arms like one herding deer. "We need you _all_ out of here_ immediately_ and for God's sake _don't_ step on the red ones again!"

Clipboard looks like he's going to give me an argument. I give him a look that kills it on his lips. "And _you_," I say, "You best just go home until we know what we're going to do with you…" Clipboards, you see, universally, as a species, are terribly afraid of getting into trouble of any sort. Now that he thinks he's in trouble, off he goes. Like a greased weasel.

Rory's granddad taught me that one.

Once they've all vacated the area, Pond returns to me. Looking a bit exhausted, after her performance. I congratulate her on how well she did, then tell her to throw the chainsaw into the river.

There's a branch or two lying around that they managed to lop off before we arrived. While Pond flings power tools into the Liffey with wild abandon, I prop one up against the railings and get a look at it. Cold to the touch, and bluish like steel. Splintered and ragged like wood. Oozing slightly like cut flesh. Tirinnanoc Ash. That first night, when Jessica wasn't Jessica yet, wasn't even the Little Ghost yet, was just a thing that was hunting me around the Tardis out for blood, I did a genetic scan of her. And a decent portion of her came up as this stuff. It's enough fro me to form theories, but nothing is definite yet.

Pond's done with the tools. Now she's stopped, wondering why he haven't gone back to see Rory and the Rigfennid, why I'm not hurrying her out of here. Hasn't said anything yet, but still coming to terms with it, but I tell her. "Because, Pond, our very best lead might be about to…"

I trail off, because I can hear her coming. Pounding hooves. Just that bit slower than Tardising about the place. A white steed scatters the police at the far end of the bridge. A woman riding, carrying a broadsword of the same material as the trees, as parts of Jessica, in full leather armour with a gleaming gold torque around her neck.

Pond steps up, squinting, barely daring to believe. "Oh, no way. Doctor?"

The Morrigan pulls her horse to a halt not a foot from us, sitting tall and regal.

I sigh, "Oh." Well, it just had to be, didn't it… "Hello, Morrigan."

The Morrigan grins. "Hello, sweetie."


	5. Chapter 5

"What part of 'You're not welcome here', 'Other side of the universe' or 'Leave me alone', is giving you the trouble, River?"

She tosses her head. There's a leather band around her head, though, holding her hair down, so she's lost of the usual effect. "It was all so _negative_."

I don't look at her. This can't be the same River that left us at the Tian Lu Quan. No eye-drive, for one. _That's_ the River I'm supposed to be saving right now, so this one doesn't count. This one has still been kicked out and is still supposed to be staying away from me. This one is still hard to deal with.

Rather than look at her, I look at her horse, raise a hand to its muzzle. The end of her sword gets between the hair and my palm, eases me away. "The horse is Tir," she says, softly. I look her over then, seeing her for the first time. On her Tir horse with her Tir weapon.

"Oh, River, what have you done?"

"Right, so we can't touch _her_ either?" Pond says. It's been too much for her, all of this. It stresses her out and then she gets tough.

"Everything's alright, Mum," River says quickly. "I know it's hard, but you have to trust me. Trust us."

I'm glad River has such faith. I haven't a _clue_ how I'm going to get Rory and Jessica back from Tirinnanoc and _River_… I don't know what she thinks she's playing at, but if she's waiting on me to reverse it we're all in trouble. I tell her so.

And she says, "We're already in trouble."

"Beg pardon, love?"

I'm not really in the mood to be in trouble. Especially not for her to be saying it to me. Coming from River, my instant reaction, the one I almost don't bite back in time, is 'Tell me about it'. Because her other self is still out there somewhere, with Soul in her head, surrounded by Silence, playing the villain and waiting for me to protect her.

Of course that's not what she means.

"The Tir," she explains, "have left Dublin alone for thousands of years until recently. And now they reach out, quite literally, and Health and Safety try to lop their hands off." I wish she'd rephrase that when I'm thinking about Jessica. "How would you feel?"

"Amy," I say, and grab her sleeve. "Back in the Tardis. River, we'll meet you back at the fountain."

The Rigfennid is waiting. No Rory, but the Rigfennid is there. He is, naturally, an exceptionally large man, built like an ox and all bound up in leather and copper, with a great thick beard sitting out fat from his powerful chest. He doesn't look happy either. In a man of that size, unhappy is rarely a good thing, and in a man of his position it never, ever is.

A Rigfennid, you see, isn't a king or a politician; he's a warlord. He might be in charge and he might be the one you have to deal with, but he's also the very last fuse you want to set a light to.

"Your envoy spoke well," he calls as I approach. I'm presuming Rory was my envoy. Good for him. He's good at speaking well, you know. The Cybermen still talk about him. Of course, he did have me blowing up one of their stations behind him at the time, suppose that helped… Still, good for him.

"Where is my envoy?"

"Safe." That's never as nice an answer as it sounds, is it? Pond is about ready to pop, so I ease her back a step behind me. The Rigfennid looks on this and smiles. The worst possible thing he could do. She doesn't stay a step behind me long.

"Why can people never give a proper answer to that? Where's Rory?"

The Rigfennid studies her, with a wry smile on his face. Halfway between calling her cute and wondering just who she thinks she is.

"Miss, it is well known diplomacy that when ill intent is declared between peoples, all members of a given side behind enemy lines become prisoners of war."

Pond is this close to jumping at him. Which would involve her touching him and possibly ageing millennia in the space of a moment. I put her behind me again, this time more firmly.

"Ah, now, as regards declarations of _war_, I know that's what it looks like, but-"

"Now what else would it be, sir?" he grins at me. "Are you then to seek parlay? Are you the representative of the humans in this endeavour?"

Well, nobody's exactly _asked_ me, but…

"Yeah. What the hell. Why not? I seek parlay between the parties in any imminent conflict, and all conflict to be delayed until parlay should be complete, under the laws set out by the Shadow Proclamation, so on, so forth, all the usual, _what_, Pond, what is it when I'm being a diplomat?"

She's tugging my jacket again, she _always_ does this when I'm trying to concentrate, and it's usually to remind me of something I already knew and was trying to ignore, for the sake of my sanity, but there it will be, because Pond will be tugging on my jacket, like an oversized cartoon cricket for painful things instead of pangs of conscience and I shouldn't rant. I shouldn't. She's lovely. She only means it to help me. That's alright. I'm calm now. "Yes, Pond?"

"You've pointed out on no less than three occasions already that once you've crossed over to Tirinnanoc it's very, very difficult to come back without ageing massively, possibly dying."

"I'll be alright," I tell her. "I've got two goes left anyway, and you know how I am with time-phenomena. You build up an immunity."

_Complete_ lies, of course. Awful hard to regenerate a pile of Doctor dust and you never get used to suffering a thousand years in flux. But Pond lets go of my jacket so I can go. The Rigfennid is waiting.

"Stay here," I tell her. "Find out everything your daughter knows about bridges."

"Bridges?"

"Bye now!"

I reach out so the Rigfennid can take my hand. He pulls me past the Fates and out of Dublin.

In Tirinnanoc, the fountain is a clear natural spring. Instead of bronze Fates they have flowers on stems as tall as me. Big as Pond's face and red as her hair.

Am I sad that she'll never see them?

I'd never bring Pond to this place.

You know all that stuff at the start? About the peaceable race and the land of eternal happiness? That was lies too.

Absolute nonsense.

Utter tosh.

Just didn't want the Ponds coming in with the wrong attitude.


	6. Chapter 6

The Tir are still warriors. Celts, lost in time. Maybe once a long time ago they had a chance at peace, but that all stopped. Nobody really knows what happened to it, but they know, they know for _sure_, that they're grateful for every minute the Tir keep themselves to themselves.

That's why I'm going for the bowing and scraping approach to galactic negotiation.

"You see," I begin, "it's all been a bit of a misunderstanding, back there."

"A misunderstanding?" the Rigfennid laughs. I don't like it when people like him laugh. Normally means they're about to make a really good point I can't much argue with. "Is that what you call it, good Doctor, when you give away the very heart of your people in offering, and they try and hack it to pieces?"

Good point. Can't much argue with that.

_Bloody_ told you so.

"But the humans don't know where the gardens came from? Couldn't you have left a note or something?"

"The humans know full well of our world."

The Fianna, the warrior clan of which the Rigfennid is head, are gathered ahead of us at the crest of a small hill. The sun bright behind them. Not obscured by cloud or smog or hidden by city skyscrapers. Where the land dips down beyond them, they have their meeting house, built of steely tree trunks, like their armour, like their swords. Waiting, perfectly still, unflinching, perfect show of force.

What do human beings know of this anymore?

"They don't, you know."  
>"Have they forgotten us so completely?"<p>

"Well, it's been a while."

"After all we were to them, they should have raised us up in effigy. They should kneel each day before our statues and pray for our return. And yet, when we send out our hand to shake, they would cut off our fingers."

Reminds me; Rory said he found Jessica. Where? How? And what's going on that tree-doctors millennia away make her cry?

"Oh, there are statues," I tell him. "They're very good at statues. Humans in general, but the Irish especially. Just look at Molly. You should meet Molly, she'd lighten you up." The Rigfennid stops walking to glare at me. "Not that you need to lighten up, that's not what I was saying at all. It's just when you leave them alone for as long as you have they start to wonder if they might have imagined you. You're sort of… _legend_, to them."

"And are we not real, Doctor? Do we not stand before you?" You have to hand it to him; the man gives a good solid argument. It's hard to tell somebody they're a myth when they're standing before you large as life. Or, in this case, a good bit larger. "So. Have you any _good_ reason we should not rise against the humans?"

"Oh, loads. Mostly, though, firstly, can you even go out there, into Dublin?"

Oh, subtle. God, I'm good. Give it up, Rig, you know you want to, tell me how to help my own and we'll quash your ridiculous little war counsel after.

The Rigfennid smiles. "You leave battle strategy to them as knows about it, there's a good man."

Alright, not that good. It was a brave gambit though, give me that. And I am undeterred, because that's the kind of guy I am. Also just a tiny bit angry because he's brought me here to parlay and he's not even listening. "Alright then, why _now_?"

"Because they have struck at us first. I pity them, sending a man who knows so little of war."

Oh, don't. No. No, friend, that's not a road you want to go down, that's not a discussion you want to have with me, that's not a thing you want to bring up when I'm trying to remain sane and sensible and my _God_ but I have to physically bite my tongue to keep from just shutting him right up.

"No, I mean the gardens. Why now, after all this time, why choose now to reach out to Earth?"

We have crested the hill, and stand now amongst the rest of the Fianna. Which is probably mean to intimidate me, but he tipped me over, just a little bit, with that last comment. I'm not much afraid of them, just now.

I am, by the way, utterly placid. Really.

The Rigfennid gestures, with one open hand the size of a paving slab, at the landscape. Low and undulating, some beautiful version of the Liffey running clear and glittering through the lowest point. Green fields and blue forests, great riffs of red flowers, and orange and silver. Undisturbed, untarnished nature.

"We were not always so strong as we are now. Not long after we first withdrew from the humans we lost our power source. Everything you see here was a black and arid wasteland. Now, after so long, we are risen again. And we sought to heal the rift with the world we were forced to abandon. And we were denied. Would you blame us for our anger, Doctor?"

Ah, propaganda. You never get bored of it, you know. From the Sontarans through to the Nazi Party. Now don't get me wrong, it's a horrible bad practice, and _very_ annoying when you're forced to listen to it. But when you start doing subtitles in your head it's great fun.

For instance, I shall translate what our friend the Rigfennid just said.

"We were making human life hell, so they snuck up on us one night and broke our temporal maintenance system, putting us out here beyond the shifting sands. Because karma has a sense of humour, not long after this the batteries ran out, and we were too proud to borrow some more off the humans, so we suffered in the dark for millennia. Recently we stole some batteries from somewhere and tried to go back to the humans, very probably to make things difficult for them again. They're not interested, so we're getting forceful. Can you blame us, Doctor?"

Why yes, yes, my Rigfennid mate, my old mucker, my pal, my Brother of the Ash, yes I can. Now where are Rory and Jessica and how do I leave?

I don't say that because I have no wish to die.

All this time, I've been being escorted down the hill by the entire Fianna, apparently towards their meeting house. Now, though, I am herded to the left. Into the trees.

There's more than a meeting house there, there's a fortress. And the very tallest tree of them all sticks up out of the inner courtyard, opposite a tower almost as tall and with no windows before the halfway point.

"You'll want to be checking on your envoy," the Rigfennid says. Which is rather nice of him, considering that's what I was about to say. I'll give him this, he observes to the letter the ways of war. Of which I know quite a bit, but I was being calm about that, wasn't I? Calm, yes, not offended.

He points upward.

Rory sticks his head out a window, a good deal more than halfway up.

"Alright?"

"They were being really nice and then they put me in prison."

I bite back the instinct to nod and tell him they're like that. "But you're not hurt or anything?"

"Oh, nothing like that. But Doctor, there's a woman up here, and-"

Typical. Bloody _typical_. "Rory," I sigh, "I'm trying to keep Dublin from getting into a war they weren't aware of starting with an entity they won't understand. Just close your eyes and think of Pond, you'll be alright. Now," I turn away from him and back to the assembled Fianna. "We were parlaying, weren't we?"

And God help them all, but I can talk about this forever if I have to.


	7. Annoyingly Split Up: Rory

Just for the record, that is _not_ what I meant, alright? I was trying to help _him_, not asking for help myself. It's these ones where we all get split up, they _annoy_ me, you know? Because no matter what you find out, what you know, you have no way of getting it to anybody, even finding out if it matters. You know like you watch Star Trek, and they've all got communicators. Or in Star Wars everybody's always talking into headsets. Yeah, it's not like that.

Anyway, my possibly-important-but-I-have-no-way-of-knowing fact this week is that this woman up here is claiming to be a deposed queen.

Bit out of my league, don't you think? She certainly seems to think so. She hasn't had any subjects in a while. That could be it. All that regalness, that pent-up queendom, is all coming out now that she's got somebody to take it out on. That's nice. Homely. Almost like being back on the Tardis…

Speaking of, if the Doctor were up here to mess everything up, instead of downstairs to (I have absolute faith) make everything better, he'd point out that Her Majesty looks like she's in just a little bit more trouble than I am. They just put me in the cell. They chained _her_ to the wall.

"Human," she said, as soon as she saw me. I'm getting used to that, being addressed as a member of my race and not a person. Not sure how I feel about that one. "Who brought you over into my land?"

"Good question. I was pushed."

"Don't be ridiculous. You haven't aged a day. One of my people must have taken your hand."

That was our first exchange. I didn't question the last part because it didn't seem important. Yeah. That's it. No point worrying about how I got here, I'm here now, no sense in worrying about possible advanced ageing processes or even asking about them because what difference does it make and yeah, I'm used to these things, but I'm… I'm not _brave_ about them yet.

Her name is Niamh. She looks young and speaks like she's ancient, and she never really looks at me but out the window. I was up there myself for a while, but she kept telling me to get out of the way, so I sat down again.

They chained her where she can see. That's how she explained it to me. "This," she said, "is my punishment for being nothing but a good queen to them. They hang me here where I can watch the pretender sitting on the throne they tore me from."

Oh yeah.

That's my other kind-of-slightly-might-be-important fact that nobody's around to listen to.

I know where Jessica is.

If you go to the window that overlooks the courtyard, there's another one of those trees, so tall I can't see the top of it from where I am, so heavy I can hardly see the sides of it.

The base of it, still living, has been carved out into a rough throne shape. That's where Jessica is. Sleeping now, curled up on her side. And you can see all down her back and arms, all over her, where the blue steel ash is growing one way or another, in or out, of her skin.

At the Tian Lu Quan, while the Doctor was enjoying an adventure that never actually happened, there was a mad Irishman calling Jessica his sister. We tried to save her, you know. 'The sister and the sweetheart of the Ash.' Well, yeah, it would certainly seem to want her.

When I asked him on the way here, he didn't seem to think it would have made a difference. But if the Doctor had really been awake at the Tian Lu Quan, I don't think we still would have ended up here.

I'm supposed to step up, aren't I? This is one of those times where Amy would be pushing me, until I stepped up. Right. Fine. I can do that. I faced off with the hoards of the Gaul. Don't _remember_ it often, but I can do this. I'm ready for one mad royal who's chained to the wall.

I stand up again.

"You're in the way," Niamh snaps. I sit down.

"That girl out there-"

"The false power. What of her?"

"What do you know about her?"

"That she is my greatest mistake." Oh my God! Apple, _Queen Niamh_ Apple, Mummy Apple, I've found – "A long time ago, a people found their way to Tirinnanoc. They brought the girl with them." Oh. Still an orphan then, Jessica. Sorry, princess. Well, no; not-princess. "The land was sick, the power failing. I could do nothing. That was when my people first began to turn against me. The people who came presented the girl as hope. They began work with the stuff of our trees to… _alter_ her. Make her compatible. And then, when she was complete, when she could have done something for me and my people, they took her away again."

"These people," I ask her. "Wear a lot of black, big white heads, didn't talk much?"

"Yes," she spits back, "Now don't interrupt me again. I may no longer have my throne but I can still have you killed." Fair enough. I try, instead, kneeling up to get another look across the courtyard, but she puts that idea down pretty quick too. "And all these years, my own Rigfennid was plotting against me. Sent his son out into the other world to bring her back. Tore me down from my place himself."

"That's terrible," I say, and mean it. Not just for Jessica either, and not just for Niamh, but for that Rigfennid when we take Jessica back to Earth and Niamh comes back into her kingdom. She'll probably tell him to lop his own head off.

Another thought occurs to me. And this is how I know I've been hanging around with the Doctor way too long because this is the kind of thought that only he should ever really consider. If we take Jessica back, does that mean Tirinnanoc goes back to power-failure? It's very tempting (or what _he_ would call 'human') to ignore that question. But I know him, and we're not going _anywhere_ until everybody's safe and sound.

"Ni… _Your Majesty_. If it's not impertinent to ask-" Oh God, I have learned far too much about dealing with alien royalty, this is not healthy, "- How did it happen that your kingdom was failing to begin with?"

She says nothing for a long time. Just stares out that window. And I'm beginning to wonder if she even heard me.

A tiny blue tendril creeps in around the stonework. Out along the length and in a little cluster at the end, deep burnt orange flowers curl open. She speaks then, so low and so soft. Says a name as if she's scared to even hear it. "Oisin," she says and I used to talk to Amy that way, when she wasn't Amy but a box with Amy in it, and I didn't even know whether she could hear me. It's familiar, that voice, and yet it never happened. It's like an old song on the radio, and you don't know the name, but you know every word.

She would tell me more, except that something happens to one of those little flowers. A drip. I mean, nothing _actually_ drips, there's nothing falling, but as clear as day I see that flower being hit by a drip, by something from up above, and it withers and dies.

Then another sound, carrying up out of the courtyard. Jessica crying again. This time Niamh's not going to stop me looking. I crane up, and the leaves are turning dark and limp.

"The humans," Niamh says, and says with the lowest snarl I've ever heard. "They'll destroy her for me."

"No," I tell her. "No, because if you want your kingdom back in one piece you're going to help me help her."

For the second time since they threw me in jail, I call Amy. It was brilliant, actually, they'd never seen a mobile before. I just showed them Amy's picture as the wallpaper and told them it kept the image of my wife with me. They all want one. We're going to make a fortune when I get out of here.

Not that me and Amy would ever exploit an alien race for dodgy technology.

"Amy, what's going on up there?"

"They decided to protect the gardens, after all-"

"Well, they're doing a bloody good job at it!"

"-from weevils, greenfly and whitefly." Pesticides. "I'm sorry, Rory, I don't know how to stop them again. River's doing her best, but there's too-"

"River?"

"Oh, yeah, River's the Morrigan. She says everything's going to be fine."

River can't hear the Rigfennid roaring. Queen Niamh laughing to herself. Jessica keening.


	8. Unfortunately Split Up:  The Doctor

"Is this it, Doctor?" the Rigfennid bellows at me. "Is this the peaceful parlay you would have with us?"

Out in the courtyard, and I am sure at two other points within scenic walking distance of each other, everything is darkening, hanging limp. Through it all, there's a noise, piercing, almost mechanical. Pained. Like a dog that's been kicked and doesn't understand why.

"Take me to your power source," I tell him. "_Now_!"

"Oh, certainly, Doctor," he smiles. "Finn, take him to your sister."

One of the Fianna steps away from the group, to a door on my right, onto the courtyard. Now that he's not just one of a faceless mass, I recognize him. At the Tian Lu Quan, he was the one that stole Jessica from under my nose. Madame Song's 'if-I-can't-have-her' approach to negotiations. Finn, the Brother of the Ash, is to take me to Jessica.

"Why did you bring her here?" I ask him. He closes the door behind us before he'll answer me.

"Because my father asked me to." I confirm that he means the Rigfennid and he continues, "Because the land was dead without her."

"You Tir used to have a queen, what happened to her?"

"Her highness Queen Niamh no longer had the interests of the people at heart. She would have destroyed us in the end."

"Oh, you're a cheery bunch, you lot."

Young Finn is leading us through the overgrown garden. If you're watching the right places you can see great swathes of dark and withering being tracked through it all. If you listen carefully, whenever you see one of those great waves go by, that impossible noise shifts up a pitch.

"I'll fight with my father against anyone who dares to hurt our sister."

There's information there to be mined about Jessica's genetic irregularities, but I trust Rory's met somebody in his cell and can fill me in on all that later. I myself am just a little bit distracted right now.

I've been sitting in that war room talking to the Rigfennid, or rather _at_ him when he wasn't listening to a word, and all that time Jessica was not thirty feet away tied to a tree.

Well, I say 'tied'; bio-organically fused is better, it's just a bit of a mouthful, when all I really mean is that the ash in her body has grown part of the ash at her back. When I finally get her to open her eyes she looks pleased to see me. "Morrigan am have said him to be coming."

"I know about River, Jessica, you don't have to cover that up."

"Riversing am said. And am said tells him _heretimes_ that after am not its fault."

"Why, Jessica, what happens after?"

Wide-eyed, distant, "Not knows. Riversing am said tells him it am just a…" And here she pauses, trips syllable by syllable along an unfamiliar word, "bat-ter-ree."

I look up at Finn. "No," he's saying, "nobody comes here but me."

"Get through many double-A sisters, do you?"

Then, from miles up and far behind me, "Doctor!"

"Rory?" Jessica hears him too, and she calms. Stays curled up against pain, but calms.

"I'm still in the tower. Don't worry if you can't see. I called Amy. She says it's pesticides. River's trying to stop them, but there's too much going on."

Of course. That's what the great big swathes are; spraying hoses. Human chemicals safe enough for human gardens but not for flora that have never suffered so much as a city fog. I waste a second with my head in my hands. Then I straighten away from Jessica and grab young Finn by the torc, push him close to her. "Look at her. Is this what you do to your sister? Now I know it doesn't look like it to you, but those humans up there are only doing what they think is a really great idea and all for the best. They are getting it typically _wrong_, but their typical hearts are typically in the right place. Don't make her suffer for that."

"But Doctor, if she were free how would we fight back?"

"You _don't_, they're not _fighting_, why does nobody here _listen_ to sense?"

I would give him more of an argument, except that just at that moment, Jessica's hand flashes out and snatches mine.

At first she doesn't say anything.

Rory does. Shouting down again, "Doctor? I was over at the other window then and…"

"The quick version, Rory, if you wouldn't mind!"

"That Richfenny guy's out there talking to what looks like most of Tirinnanoc. Bad stuff, mostly. Angry, hateful stuff, mostly."

Jessica is hearing this, and nodding. "Jessica not does it. Them does. Doctor am to believe it, not it, am not bad, am having stopped being bad, him am not to be punishing her please again."

I sit on the arm of her rough-hewn throne. Her head falls against my knee and I put one hand on her hair. "Why wouldn't I believe you? You're just the power source, I know that."

She looks up.

Jessica, normally, is very pale. Lived indoors most of her life, so that's natural. She's not now, though. She's flushed like she's standing in front of a fireplace. The hand still holding mine is fiercely hot, and I can feel her pulse pounding through it. "Because am being the same," she says. And a first red teardrop breaks rank at the corner of her eye. "They kills them dead in both their hearts."


	9. Frustratingly Split Up: River

Their Rigfennid's been planning this for years.

You see, I don't just show up on the day of the massive climax and go charging right on in to do God _alone_ knows what untold damage in pursuit of a quick fact, like I'm going to be able to _solve_ everything on the back of this one thing. It never works and he does it _every_ time, and that's why we have the phrase, 'things always get worse before they get better'.

Sorry, what was I saying?

No, no, you see, I prepare. I've been here for a week. And I don't just announce myself either like everybody should bow down and make me tea just by virtue of my name. I work at it. Hence the horse and the get-up. He thinks I do these things to annoy him, but that's just his own natural arrogance. He needs me, you know. Doesn't know it, wouldn't ever admit it, but he does. Who do you think fills in all that background knowledge on the Tardis mainframe?

And what do I get? Birthdays out and the odd Sunday. Me, complain? Never. Things you do for love, and all that.

God, _again_. Sorry.

In short, I've been using the Morrigan as a cover to spy on the Tir for the last week. And to keep Jessica company. She's been scared and there's no one to talk to except the one that kidnapped her. Understandably they're not exactly joined at the hip just yet.

The Rigfennid _has_ those people. When he talks, they listen. Most of them don't even understand it yet, but that is the most dangerous thing of all. When he talked to them about being happy, about reaching out to humankind again, they were happy. And their world grew. The place and the people are one, genetically and psychically. When they dreamed of reaching out, and the power was there to support them, the gardens grew right up through time itself. Afterward, Jessica slept for a day and a half. Couldn't rouse her at all.

So what now?

What now when humankind would seem to be cutting them out again?

What happens if the Rigfennid calls the people together and speaks again, and this time calls them up to hate?

I'm there to see the first casualty. Wish I wasn't.

It's a couple. Lanky types, him with his hair in his eyes and her with her feather earrings brushing her shoulders. Just about kids. I like them at first; they're doing a bit of my job for me. I've been going about driving a sword through tanks of pesticide, which is good fun, but they'll work to replace them.

They haven't started spraying here yet, down on Grafton Street. Molly's still standing with her great big clams on display, and her fish too, completely uncontaminated by organophosphate complexes as yet, and these two are why. They're holding hands around the tree, we-shall-not-be-moved, no chemicals, chemicals are sacrilege.

The council boys are waiting for the police to come and remove them.

The Tir are quicker than the police.

This couple, these two barely-adults with the world at their feet and maybe the brass to enjoy it, they grabbed hold of the tree. And now the tree grabs back. One branch either side. Winding once around the waist. Now, the boy is bit more cautious, but the girl laughs, calls it a miracle, calls the council boys over to look. Gets all defiant. Glows with it.

And then, while all the crowd look on, while her boyfriend just starts to relax into it, while I can do nothing but watch, that same little branch curls back at its finest end, like a snake, and drives home hard into her heart. Boyfriend's not far behind.

Any other branch near a human reaches out, and as they run the roots lift right up through the pavement to trip and snare.

I have the horse trample as much as it bloody pleases on my way to those first two victims. I try tugging, but I can tug as much as I please. Those little tendrils are wrapped about their hearts, strangle-tight, they're not coming out.

Under my breath, I apologize to Jessica. Raise up the sword and lop them off. Too late, though. Far too late.

And what can I do? I can clear these people out, yes, but by the time I get to Trinity, to the Bridge, how many will have been taken? And how many will be taken here when I am gone?

Executive decision time.

Every ticking second, more are dying, having the life drained out of them, down through those trees. And he's down there, you know, the Doctor. Probably found Jessica, by now, so he sees this, he knows this is happening.

I know what he'd do, if he were here. He'd fight it here. But that's only because he couldn't bear the hurt. He wouldn't watch this.

Not that it's easy for me. Every ticking second, more are dying.

Every ticking second.

That's it. I spur the horse. Not to scatter the crowd or warn them at any other place, but back to the fountain, to the crossover.

It's quicker to end this. I could stop and fight but the longer I leave it, the worse the retaliation from Earth is going to be. What I'm bearing in mind is that, while they'll be retaliating against the Tir, they'll be attacking Jessica. That's not going to go down well with the Doctor and the _last_ thing we all need is him kicking off in Tirinnanoc. No, I have to stop this from the source, and stop it now.

I can hear them screaming behind me, all the way from Trinity.

He'd forgive me for this. He would.


	10. Not Long To Be Split Up:  Amy

River's probably wondering where I am. And if the Doctor was here, he'd be telling me to stay away, probably. But no good mother ever does what the kids say. Sends out the wrong message, doesn't it?

I saw it. Out in the courtyard. I just barely got away from it myself. The roots don't just wrap you up, they split, and you put your foot through them and they close like a bear trap. Wasn't getting me, though. I still have one of the hacksaws from the bridge earlier.

Yeah. Didn't see _that_ one coming, did he? And yet, oh, if he was here and with his ankle in a tree root, wouldn't he be happy I'd stolen it? Somebody has to plan ahead.

_Somebody_ has to do things she's been told not to do when she knows they're going to get her somewhere much quicker.

I'm here to see McDonagh.

I don't know what the Doctor's problem is, either. He's usually very, very good at talking people into helping us. And when one of us is in danger, I've never really known him to give them a choice before. 'No' has never really been an acceptable answer. And yet on this one, with Rory stuck in some untouchable time-world (don't laugh. Look at how he's explained it to me and tell me you would call it anything else), he backed off. Yeah, well, not me, not yet. I haven't backed off. And I'm not leaving without him.

He's still at his office. Of course he is; Tirinnanoc is outside the window murdering anything it can lay its twigs on.

I charge in and he starts up the old 'Miss Pond' stammer like he's about to tell me off, and I just shake my head.

"You can help," I tell him.

"No," he says. Sounds sure, too.

No. Not putting me off.

"Yes, you can, or the Doctor wouldn't have brought us here."

You know, I liked McDonagh when we first came here. Funny little man cracking jokes in his mad office, paying attention when Rory and I didn't have a clue what they were talking about anymore. I think I misjudged him a bit. For instance, the other world that, for whatever reason, he has researched and studied, is killing at will outside the window and a) he still won't help me and b) he's hiding from it. Not in any way you'd notice. Just that he stays in his chair and is staring into the blotter on his desk like it has the answers.

"The Doctor," he says, and way too slowly, "brought you here because he wanted to talk to the Tir, and then figured that out for himself. Now that's as far as I could have gotten you, Miss Pond."

"_Mrs Williams_, Professor."

I don't like the look he gives me then. The penny drops about me and Rory and he looks up all shocked and sad. Don't think about it. Think, Amy, what next? He still knows way more than he's saying, we _know_ that, but how do we get to it? Don't think about the Doctor; he'd just know exactly what to say to trigger the floodgates, we're not going to be that good right away. Think about River. What would River do? Get him to trip over himself, that's what River would do.

Quick, though. Not long now before more people get their hacksaws out and worse, and who could blame them? But what will happen to Rory when they do?

"That was your life's work, wasn't it? Tirinnanoc, I mean. Why, though? Of all the alien worlds and the mad, crazy things going on in this one, why Tirinnanoc?"

"It was _here_." If that's all the answer he's giving me I'm just going to squeal in his ear until he comes with me. "The best chance to prove that all myth is born of stone, Miss… _Mrs_ Williams. If you can prove one then the rest become possible."

"I don't understand."

"There's a legend, here in Ireland, the story of Tir Na Nog, do you know it?"

"No. I take it it's got something to do with trees killing people."

"No. It's to do with a land of eternal youth and beauty, and a wonderful young queen who stole a human warrior away to it. But a day in Tir Na Nog was a hundred years in the real world. The warrior didn't know this. Crossed back over to visit his family. And the moment his foot touched the earth of home, all that age descended on him. He died and the queen was heartbroken. That, Mrs Williams is the myth and _that_-" And he stabs a finger at the window, "Is the concrete of it all."

The 'concrete', then, smashes out straight through the window and wraps around his wrist. It starts growing, winding a fine tendril up around his arm. McDonagh panics, and the harder he pulls the tighter it wraps. I grab the letter opener off his desk, pull it through the twig and grab him away from the desk, out from the window.

He's coming with me now, alright.

In the hallway another window comes in. The branch flails back and forth, thumping the pictures off the walls, feeling us out.

Running down the stairs I wriggle my phone out of my pocket.

"Rory? Rory, are you alright?"

"What's happening, Amy? It doesn't sound safe."

"It's not but don't worry. Look, I've got a half an idea. I'm hoping you or the Doctor has the other half."

* * *

><p>AN I'm thinking of using one or other of the Ponds, maybe both, as the main voice for next week's episode. Any comments on my little practices would be greatly appreciated.


	11. Chapter 11

I don't like it when my friends bleed. Much less so when it's not even their blood.

It's getting difficult to even stand near this tree, it's flinging itself about so much. One branch reaches right down so I have to step aside. And along its length at three different points, three twigs make the unmistakable motion of stabbing through something tough, resistant. Then curling tight around something much softer. Those three, different heights, something familiar about them.

Man, woman and child.

Young Finn, by the way, remember him? Who would fight alongside his father no matter what? Him? He's not even looking. While I'm watching this, he's holding Jessica's hair back as she coughs up Dublin blood. I grab him back again. Those torcs are useful bloody things.

"Is this your war?" I ask him. "How does it work, how does he do it?"

"The heart of the people is the heart of the land."

There's that propaganda stuff again. Getting chucked back up like so many worms for baby birds.

"Of course… _You_ can't reach back to Earth, but your gardens can. But how, how is that even possible when…"

Jessica. That's why she was so important to them. That's why they allowed the Silence to bring her here, to work on her. They always intended to steal her back. Jessica took Tirinnanoc Ash out into the world like an incubator, enough of a subtle change between the Tir and the Human for it to work both ways.

"So. How long has your _father_ been planning this little coup?"

Finn gets defensive, shakes out of my grip. Starts to unsheathe his broadsword. The light catches on it. Right in my eyes too. "It's not a coup!" Changes his mind about the sword; even he doesn't believe that. But there's still another flash of light. Which means it wasn't the sword.

"No? What do you call deposing a queen to go to war with an innocent people? What do you call using the people's own fear and hate for his own ends?" Another flash or two. It's making it very difficult to be intimidating. "I'm sorry, but can you see that too?"

"It's coming from the tower," he says.

"Aha! Then I'll prove it to you. I will prove to you that this is not the only way for Tirinnanoc to thrive again, and in fact that it will ultimately destroy you when the Dubliners finally decide to just burn everything."

I remove the sonic from my pocket with a flourish and point it towards the source of the flashing. Set to intercept any electrical signal up there.

A conversation on a mobile telephone, that's what it picks up.

- _but Rory, if that much is true, what about the rest of the legend? What if the story about the queen and the warrior has something to do with it?_

_ - Amy, I don't care, just get out of the way. Promise me, Amy, get somewhere far away from those gardens and lock yourself away, do you understand me?_

_ - Yeah. Soon as you're back._

_ - For God's sake, just do it! What do I have to go back to if you're lying there bled?_

Then, shocking all of us, a third voice interrupts. A long, pained scream. It's not just over the sonic that we hear it either, it's coming straight down from the tower. –_Stop_, the third voice adds, _To the devil with you both, now stop! You'll never go back, do you hear me? To the devil with you, man, I'll hold you here forever! Does she hear that much? Does she understand that much?_

_Rory? Rory, who is that?_

…_The Queen_.

That's enough to listen in on, I think. "Finn, you know, don't you? You understand that this place does not run best on blood and hate. That's why you kept coming here, kept talking to Jessica, isn't it? Because the flowers bloomed better when she was happy. Now how do we get her off this throne, Finn?"

"If you can just get her up, pull her away from it, it'll let go, but she'll try and get back. You'll have to hold her off. It's the rest of her body, Doctor, it calls to her."

"I'll get her up, you get between her and the tree and Finn? Stay there. Don't make me say it again."

All of it easier said than done with the branches lashing out around us. It gets stronger, now. It heard us, I'm absolutely convinced. This world is living and it knows I'm about to cut the heart out of it.

Fine. Mea culpa. If it would stop misbehaving it could have one of mine.

Jessica uncurls just enough for me to speak to her, to wipe the red tear tracks from her face. "Listen, I'm about to do something, and it will feel like punishment, but it's not. It's not. I believe you and I trust you and I'm only trying to help." Then I take both her arms at the elbow and pull her into me. Making sure those arms go either side of me too, because when she realizes what's happening, that I'm taking her away from what must feel like the perfect fit, the stakes grow long and sudden. She meant that one, whether it was me or not.

Finn, like he promised, entirely not-under-duress and of his own free will, steps in behind her and grabs her back. The Tir are as strong as she is; he's got a better chance of holding her than I do.

"Whatever happens next, don't let her go."

What happens next is that the trees stop thrashing. A few silvery leaves go yellow at the edges and curl papery back on themselves.

Beyond the tower, where the Rigfennid had been rallying his people, drawing out all their fear and hate to murder the humans with, the cheering stops. His roaring, booming voice, stops.

Then footsteps. Stampeding footsteps.

"He's going to kill me," Finn mutters.

Army brats. No matter where you go in time and space, they're all the same.

"He's going to kill all of us," I tell him. It sounded much more comforting before I actually spoke.

Here he comes, the Rigfennid, and the Fianna in rank behind me, and what might be the entire Tir massed behind _them_ as their army.

He's going to eat me in about four bites, and pick his teeth with Jessica.

No, he's not actually going to eat me, I'm being figurative.

Then again, he's a big fella, isn't he…

"See now," the Rigfennid shouts, addressing his people and not me, "See what the humans are like? They'd send this man here to talk about peace and parlay, and when they don't get their way, why, all he's here for is to steal from us our own very life."

"That's a bit melodramatic, don't you think? I mean, didn't you have your own power source for a while there? Like, forever? Yes, I remember distinctly there was a… A _queen_ of sorts, around here, wasn't there? What happened to her? Holiday? Little weekend in Cornwall, was it?"

"Not quite!"

This enraged cry from the far end of the crowd. They part, and there in a line you'd see Finn holding Jessica, then me, then the Rigfennid and now, storming towards him in prisoner's rags and all the rampant glory of wronged royalty, Queen Niamh of the Tir.

But she was chained to a wall, I hear you cry, how can she possibly be down out of the tower?

Because, dear and constant reader, I'm a clever sob when I put my mind to it. And I never _just_ eavesdrop on personal conversations. No, I was bouncing the signal from the sonic off Rory's mobile, amplifying it over the distance between us, and with it I was able to undo the locks on the cells and on Niamh's shackles.

Oh yes, look at her, face like thunder, ready to give her Rigfennid what for, put him back in his place, oh, this is wonderful. This was a good idea. This was the _best_ idea.

Until he just slaps her right out of her stride and into the crowd.

"This is not your world anymore," he tells her, stepping up to stand over her. "You had your chance to heal us and it was all you could do to sink us in _your_ grief. Well, no more, Niamh. You won't hold us back. And neither will the humans."

And at that, he gestures to the Fianna to take Jessica back, to pick up where they left off.

Alright, not the best idea I ever had. Fine. I'll take the hit on that one.

Something'll come up. That's what I say to Rory when he appears at the other end of that split in the crowd. He followed Niamh at his own pace, but I presume she ran. I would have run. And he's nice about it, at least. Shouts back to me, "I saw those locks open, and I really thought, 'Yeah, this will work'."

"I thought so too."

Then he goes to offer some other commiseration, and I raise a hand to stop him. "What, what is it?"

"Something's coming up."

Hooves. A set of hooves pounding towards us.

River doesn't bother with the main door, she comes straight in through the fort and reins the horse to a stop between the Rigfennid and I. "What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?" Talking to him and not me for once. The Fianna stop what they're doing and drop down, their hands to their hearts and their heads bowed. The Rigfennid falls to one knee.

"Why is it everywhere you go somebody ends up on their knees?"

Either she doesn't hear me or she pretends not to.


	12. Chapter 12

"On your feet," the Morrigan snaps. The Rigfennid stands. Rory and I try very hard not to laugh right out loud. "What's this I hear about a war going on?" He mumbles something that even I can't hear, two feet away. Apparently, though, it's not apologetic enough. "And who am I?"

"You are the Morrigan."

"And _what_ am I?"

"You are the Guardian of War and all Warriors…"

"So why am I only hearing about this _so-called war_ after you've already begun it?"

River swings back her sword, catches my lapel with the tip and drags me towards Queen Niamh. "Pick _that_ up and put it back, please."

"Yes, love. Whatever love wants."

The Rigfennid has to watch me help Niamh up from the ground and guide her back to the throne. It annoys him, makes him brave. He tips up his head and tells The Morrigan, "Then you condemn us. She hasn't even anger left in her. We'll wither to husk with her on the throne."

The Morrigan shushes him, shaking her head. Places the tip of her sword to her lips. "You'll wither to a husk if I kill you for talking too much. Now-" She straightens, sheathes the sword, and starts pacing the horse back and forth, addressing not just him but all of the assembled, "Here's what we're going to do."

"No."

This from Niamh.

A branch swings out, clearly meant to lash River from the saddle. The horse is just that half-second too quick for it.

And Niamh smiles. It's a mad, isolated smile, too, and the eyes above it empty. And River looks to me and says, "I _really_ thought that was working."

"You did better than us," Rory shouts up. Still staying down the back, there, you'll notice, away from the murdering trees.

"Morrigan," Niamh says from that smile, "I am restored. And _you_, Fionngall MacCuimhaill-" A root raises from the ground, hooks under the Rigfennid's chin and drags him towards her. "You would have me angered? Enjoy your wish." The root lashes up and wraps his throat.

Finn cries out for his father.

The Rigfennid uses the little gasp he can manage to tell him to hold onto Jessica. When Niamh's madness fails them they'll still need her to survive.

River brings the horse up behind me. "Let's just concentrate on getting away from here. We can fight this from the other side, but we're done for if we stay here."

"Agreed. You get Rory, I'll get Jessica."

Right. Time to override the instruction of a young man's father whilst said father is being strangled by a deranged blue blood. Time to turn it on, I'd say.

I approach Finn cautiously, from the side. He's still staring at his father, who is still staring back. Who says, "Don't betray me twice, boy."

Oh, time to turn it all the way on.

"Now we talked about this. This isn't about Jessica, it's nothing to do with her. You can't do this in good conscience."

But Finn shakes his head, keeps tight hold of her. Jessica, since Niamh reclaimed her throne, has been exhausted, limp, hanging on him. It's not her body anymore, it would seem. "No, Doctor. You didn't live in that wasteland before."

"And neither did she, now give her here!"

"No!"

On the plus side, at least River's not beating me. It's Niamh who is refusing to give Rory up. Branches and vines have shot through the log walls and hold him pinned there, much as Niamh herself was held in the tower. That's the logic of the mad, you see; do unto others. Doesn't necessarily matter _what_ others…

"Oh, now, what's _your_ excuse?" I shout over at her. "At least this lad's worried about the greater good, but what are you moaning about?"

That same mental, absent smile. "I promised this man he would never see Earth again."

Hooves, fast as jousting. River brings the horse right up. With one stroke of her sword she cuts loose the Rigfennid and puts the point to Niamh's throat as she screams. Niamh, however, is far too far gone to care. Tilts her head to one side and asks, "Who are you really, Morrigan? What goddess would rage so on the life of a mortal?"

"What queen would lose her people and her mind for one?"

This is one of those raw nerves I was thinking about earlier, when the Rigfennid and I first met. Niamh stands out of her throne, the new-grown attachments stretching with her. "A woman first," she cries, "and then a queen!"

Speaking of the Rigfennid, too, he's got his breath back. Finn has served his temporary purpose and now his father throws him off. One of his hands goes right round Jessica's upper arm, and looks like there's probably room for the other one there too. She takes the changeover with barely a flutter of eyelids. But under the lashes she's looking at me.

We really did think this would work, didn't we? I mean, I'm not misremembering that? It wasn't that we actually had no idea and were willing to try anything and now we're overcompensating? No. No, we, all of us, me, Rory, River, probably Jessica if she'd had half a mind to think, we _all_ thought this was going to work.

I step out a bit. I want to apologize and I'm not doing it three separate times. Once is bad enough.

I look to Rory, to make sure he'll be able to hear me.

And Rory's got that look on his face. That look, where you never know what's going to come out of his mouth. It'll either be a stroke of genius or we're all going to die quite, quite horribly.

River sees that I've paused and glances over her shoulder. "Oh, no," she says.

"I know…"

"No, I know what it is." With a glance, she indicates Niamh to me, "Penny in the air?"

I get it a second before Rory does.

"Rory, no. Closey-mouthy-stoppy-talky." As he walks up through the crowd, I walk down toward him. We meet in the middle and I try to push him back.

"But Doctor, I know how to-"

"No, no you don't, now just let's not make anything worse-"

"Doctor, it's something Amy said on the phone, I don't think you know what I'm thinking."

"Then don't _think_, Rory, you're not very good at it. Now, some other time, when we're not all in mortal peril, we'll practice thinking and you'll improve but this_ is not the time_."

"Let him speak," Niamh says. With a mild interest that implies she knows what he's going to say too. I turn to give her an argument and she brings down a branch, stuffs it between my teeth. Rory steps out around me.

"Oisin," he says. "He's alive. I can show you, if you like."

Niamh goes limp, so the branch falls out of my mouth. "_And_ just like that," I tell him, "we're all finished. Nice going, Mr Pond."


	13. Chapter 13

He's right, of course.

Oisin (you know Oisin, of course. Oisin? Oh, for heaven's sakes, the great mortal warrior who once lived happily with Queen Niamh in Tirinnanoc and then tried to visit home and aged himself to dust, _that_ Oisin. Yes. Thank you. I told you you knew) is alive.

And Rory does indeed know where to find him and can, given the right angles and bearings, show him to Queen Niamh.

Now, theoretically, in the loved-up fantasyland that is _la tête du Pondicus_, this will be enough to cheer Niamh up no end, us all free to go, happily ever after. He is, perhaps, imagining, that it's as simple as Niamh reaching over and pulling her one true love through and home to her.

Only, see, that's the thing. The fact that Oisin survived his first crossing back to Earth was a miracle of impossibly good luck. Should he so much as touch Niamh, or anything Tir for that matter, ever, ever, ever again, he's going to crumble out of existence before her very eyes.

And I for one would like to wager that Queen Niamh is not going to be quite such the chirpy and forgiving bunny that Mr Pond is imagining when she hears all this.

I refuse to walk to my death; I've managed to wrangle a lift on the back of River's horse. Now we're all making our way in solemn procession back to the spring, where, elsewhere in time and space, Amy and McDonagh are waiting at the Fountain of the Fates on St Stephen's Green.

Penny in the air?

Rory is at the very front of the parade, with Niamh. She walks in a way Jessica couldn't, with the roots of the earth reaching up to hold her every step. Rory, by the way, still has _no_ idea what he's done, keeps smiling back at me, trying to reassure me that he knows what he's doing. That's it, Rory, go on ahead. Yes, go on, grin away there like you're saving us all. "Darling, don't take this the wrong way, but I might murder your father."

"Ooh, you're so competitive."

"So how are we going to work this?"

"This horse can cross over. Provided we can stay on it as far as the Tardis, we'll be fine. Touch Terra firma and it's all over."

"Yes, you're rather fetching on a horse, where'd it come from?"

"I stole it from Finn a week ago. He's been going back and forth since the Silence were here, looking for Jessica. They exist in a state of temporal grace."

"_Actually_ this time?"

"I know. If we can grab Daddy, we can get out, but I don't know what to do about Jessica."

Jessica is next in the procession. The Rigfennid has had to carry her, and I don't like seeing her in the arms that would destroy a city, even a race, just because he can't go back. Finn is trailing a sad half-step behind him.

Then it's us.

Then the rest of the Fianna, in case River and I should get uppity at all.

"You should go back to the other side," I tell her. "I'll bequeath you the Tardis, you can take care of your mother. Eventually, far, far down the line, you'll learn to love again, and if it's not somebody I approve of I'll haunt you and let you know and you'll dump him, won't you, River? Tell me you'll do that for me when I'm a ghost."

"You're getting so morbid in your old age. Might all work out yet."

"Oh yes. Something'll turn up, I expect." Only we're sort of down to Pond now, as far as people-who-might-have-Plans goes. And she was part and parcel of Rory's most wonderful idea. He grins at me again. "River, give me something to throw at him, I need something to throw, just something small, just to stop him smiling at me."

But she doesn't have anything, and anyway we're almost there.

Rory, because he's Rory and he has certain instincts, calls out Amy's name the moment he sees her. She stands, comes around to our side of the spring. Niamh claps eyes on her and flings Rory back to the Rigfennid. "Hold him."

He throws Jessica over his shoulder and grabs Rory. One hand again. Whole upper arm. _Still_ looks like he'd have room for both of Jessica's too. Even Amy falters. She still _says_, "Let him go," but it's weak, not expecting anything. And the Rigfennid, for his part, is happy not to be being strangled. I'll leave it for you to guess who he listens to.

McDonagh, slower than Amy, comes around the side. Points at me. "I'm blaming you, you know."

"Oi! Not my idea. It was the Ponds, with their whispering and conspiring."

"Bloody grand love-stories. What are you going to do with them?"

"Well, they're only human."

He laughs at that. The Ponds don't get it, but McDonagh knows what I mean.

Niamh has been looking very unamused until now. Her brave strong warrior, the one they told tales about and did paintings of and raised statues to, she can't see him.

It's when he laughs. There's something beautiful about that. He laughs and the penny drops.

"Oisin," she breathes. And she tries to go to him. River charges the horse past her and I jump off.

"No, your Highness, you can't."

"I'm sorry," she says, and brings me a step closer to believing in the possibility that looks maybe can kill, "But who were you again?"

"Your Highness, you'll destroy him."

I explain to her about the dangers of Oisin ever so much as coming into contact with shifting time again, never mind crossing it.

The rest goes much as I expected. She shakes. Her eyes fill, but she doesn't cry, because somewhere inside her something snaps. She turns on Rory. And you can see, just slightly, the Rigfennid adjusting his grip on Jessica. Thinking he's probably going to be needing her soon enough.

"What are you, mad? You would bring me here to torment me?"

"You could have said something," Rory snaps at me, over her shoulder.

"Oh, you were doing far and away enough talking for all of us."

This time, Pond is strong. If she could touch anything she'd have knocked Niamh flat by now, that much is all over her face. "Step away from him. I'm warning you, _whoever_ you are, to step away from him. Don't make me come over there."

"No, no," I interrupt, far too quickly, far too loudly, "Don't come over here, Pond, please don't come over here."

River shrugs, "I'll pull her over, if she wants." I go to nudge her and nudge the horse. Just used to River standing next to me, is all.

Anyway, nobody's paying any attention to us. Even the Rigfennid, who is a difficult big thing to ignore, has been forgotten about.

Niamh crosses to Pond. Toe to toe and worlds away.

"You won't come over here. I won't allow it. And your lover will never, ever return to you either. Never age and never die, but never again shall you feel his touch. How do you feel… Amy, was it? How do you feel about that?"

McDonagh, Oisin, his face sinks, and he appeals to her, stretches out a hand he can only snatch back again.

Niamh watches the fingers reach and pull away. Smiles her sad, mad smile. "I'm sorry, my love."

Can't help myself; I nudge River again. It's still the horse. She doesn't notice again. She's up there with tears in her eyes and desperately trying to plan around this. Thinking maybe she can take the Rigfennid if she gets the jump on him, which I'm willing to help her get, but that still doesn't help us with Niamh.

"Please," Amy says, shaking, "Please, whatever you want, just name it, I'll do it, but give him back to me."

"Whatever I want?" Niamh leans down, her nose not millimetres from Amy's. "Whatever I want?" Then, right in her ear, "Then suffer, little girl. That's what I want from you."

She could always try taking Oisin hostage. She's still got that hacksaw she put in her bag at the bridge. Thought I didn't notice that. It probably wouldn't get her anywhere, but it's the closest recourse to anything effect. But she won't do that. After all, she's Pond. She's lovely, and sweet, and a horrible thing like that would never cross her oh look, she's done it and all.

She did nearly kill us in that dream-van that time, I suppose.

"What of it?" Niamh shrugs sadly. "He's no longer mine. And should either of us go from this place or should the bearing shift, should our connection to the earth break when we withdraw once more, what will I have of him? Now I, for my part, I can do this."

She's going to do her little strangling trick again, with the root, only this time with Rory. But as it starts to wind around his throat he shakes his head. "Leave it, Amy. Leave it for now."

The hand holding the hacksaw shakes, but doesn't drop. Oisin, to his credit, is standing quite calm and quite still, probably knowing nothing's going to happen to him. Amy says, very simply, "No."

And now for Rory's piece de resistance. All the good work he's done today with his human ability to talk? He's about to top it all. Ice that particular cake and cover it in little swirly chocolate bits.

"Listen to me," he begins, "I will find my way back to you. And every second of every day I will be fighting my way back to you."

I put my head on its side, on what should be the top of River's. It's not, it's the horse, but this time she responds anyway. "What's wrong?"

"To a _word_, River, this is almost exactly the last conversation Niamh and Oisin had."

"I'm going to cut his tongue out."

My sentiments exactly. Safer all round.

"And if he finishes with-"

Never one to disappoint, Rory says it for me, "And you know in your heart how long I can fight for you, Amy."

"-Then it's over."

At this, even Niamh is done with talking and taunting. This time she just rages. And the ground of Tirinnanoc grabs Rory by the ankles and winds up his body and either arm, too close for River's sword to slice it all away, and tightens all three nooses round his neck.

I, for the first in quite a long while, am paralysed. Out of options. Nothing to do but see it all, hear Pond screaming, every detail burning into me for later reference. Like, for instance, Rory's mobile phone. Squeezed out of his back pocket by an errant twig, it tumbles, and as it bumps the ground something triggers, wakes it up. The wallpaper, Amy dressed as a cat at Halloween. Stupid costume. That's not going to scare off ghosts and ghouls for an entire year, I told her… Still, Rory's dying, this isn't really the time to be thinking about his phone, I suppose.

Oh.

Oh no, wait. Yes it is. This is absolutely the time to thinking about Rory's mobile communication device which has, all this time, been working between these two worlds with no trouble whatever. This is very much the time.

Brainwave. Brain _tsunami_.

I dive forward and grab it, hold it up to show Niamh that tiny digital portrait. It's enough of a shock to her that when I tell her to stop, her grip on Rory loosens. She might have seen him use it in the prison cell, but I bet she didn't have a clue what it all meant. These regals, you know, they're always too proud to ask.

Very quickly, bearing in mind that Rory is rapidly losing air, "I have in my hand a machine that allows you to talk to people who are very far away even if you can't see them."

Niamh eyes me cautiously, fingertips stretching out towards the phone. "Go on," she says, softly. The roots about Rory's neck unravel until he can gasp, until Amy can call out his name in relief.

I've got a funny feeling that by the time I get to video messaging he's going to be brushing the last of the soil off his clothes.

It's alright, you don't have to say it. I can feel the admiration beaming off you all in waves. Don't worry about it. Really. My pleasure. Happy to help. I know, I'm a wonder to watch working, there's no need to express it in mere words. It's fine. I get it. I'm bloody _wonderful_.

Still. There's a difference between being _allowed_ to leave and…

Yeah, alright, hold off on the 'wonderful' for five minutes, I'll get back to you.


	14. Chapter 14

It's been five minutes. We're not leaving yet, give me another five. I promise, something will turn up.

Meanwhile, I've got Pond, even a world away, raging in my ear. "No," she's saying. "Just no, Doctor, just all the kinds of no that there are."

"No _what_, Pond?"

"No, we were not just saved by my mobile! I have been through all kinds of hell out here since you two disappeared, thinking I might never see you again. This has not all been solved by a _phone_!"

"Are you complaining, Pond, about my having found a suitable, even elegant solution to the small but rather important problem of your husband's recent strangulation?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Are you _complaining_, Pond, about the wonders of human technology, the glorious electronic age, bringing an end to the terrible pain of two lovers across millennia and galaxies?"

"No, but-"

"Good, I wouldn't like to think of you as a needlessly petty, callous person being a snob about something just because it's new and you take it for granted. That would be horrible."

And this is not a horrible moment. Niamh, mad-bad-dangerous-to-know mental-case-with-power Queen Niamh, back somewhere on the good side of insane now, is hiding behind various trees, saying, "Can you hear me now?" Oisin, on the other side, is smiling a single, unchanging, one-sided smile, and has yet to take his eyes from her. Me, I have to buy the Ponds new mobiles. And they're not even on the best terms with me because they didn't know previously that I could have souped up their batteries with the sonic and thrown their chargers out the window.

I like having their chargers around. You never know when they're going to be useful. They can do that they like, I'm keeping them.

"Nearly there," River says to me, from the corner of her mouth, right over Amy still complaining, still saying 'No' over and over, because she would _like_ to be beating me about the shoulders and she can't. Ha, as they say, ha.

I nod. I start to go to Rory. Since his little near-miss just now, he's been sitting flat on the ground, staring into space, with Amy in the next world muttering consolations and how brave he was. I move as if I'm just going to see him. Past the Rigfennid entirely, who is watching after Niamh with _no_ idea where he stands anymore. From the other side of him, I look to Finn, nod him towards his father. He let me down something special before, when we were trying to escape; he owes me this one.

He lingers a while, understandably terrified. Then, of Niamh, "It's good to see her restored, isn't it?"

"No thanks to you, boy, and your betrayal."

Which is a bit mean all round, I'd say. I think Finn feels the same, actually, because he stands a little straighter at that, lifts his chin.

"Let my sister go."

The Rigfennid, with his one free anvil of a hand, reaches up and scratches his beard. Smiles. It's a smile that could go either way. Either Finn stops talking right now and they go back to being father and son happy forever, or Finn does something his very soul pulls against, but which he knows to be right.

"Let her go." Oh, good lad. "We don't need her anymore. Not with Niamh's great grief lifted from us. We can be happy here again without any pain, without the humans. What do you gain keeping her? Unless you had your own reasons for bringing her here?"

"He did and all," River tells me, under her breath.

"You're kidding? You mean he's a mad egotist like most leaders of most invasions we've fought off?"

"So it would seem."  
>"<em>Amazing<em>." He doesn't know what we're saying, but he knows we're talking about him and it's not complimentary. Looking at us, and then at Niamh, warily. He's a large enough gent, this much is true, but the world around him is still a lot larger, and she's got control of that. "Rory," I say, just as quietly, helping him to his feet, "Nip over there and tell Niamh what Skype is. Then tell her I'll get it for her if she gets us Jessica back."

He's too much in shock to argue with me, stumbles off, still staring, pale as the silvery leaves on the trees. Roughly thirty seconds later, the nearest tree takes the Rigfennid around the chest and brings a branch down repeatedly on his head. When he drops Jessica from his shoulder, the same branch catches her and puts her carefully back on her feet. Coming to me, she stumbles, but grabs the reins of River's horse and stays standing.

Looking at me, her eyes swim, her tight little half-smile is weak. Then she turns her head and says up to River, "Jessica and Riversing am to be taking them back now?"

"You're such a little trooper. Yes, we are."

"Jessica must goodbye Finn-person first please."

"Of course, love, off you pop."

She lets go of the reins and stumbles off again. I step up on one side of the horse, Amy on the other.

Amy says what we're both thinking. "Taking them home? Just like that?" River smiles, nods. Amy raises her hand to strike me, then remembers where I am and holds off. Just points a warning finger at me and says, "You made it sound difficult!"

"It is _difficult_. River made it sound difficult! River said, and I quote, 'Even if I can grab my father I don't know what we can do about Jessica'."

"In that the Rigfennid was holding onto her rather tightly, sweetie!"

"Oh… I thought you meant the horse wouldn't take her. I know he made her look light but she's all full of… _ash_… Oh, right."

"Use your head, Doctor. Feet are for dancing."

"Or for wandering on out of here. Bags I the back of your horse again. Amy, we'll be with you as soon as I can put up a wifi signal for the lovebirds."

Who are a walking sitcom right now. Niamh has discovered that if she poses for a picture and Oisin takes it, then she comes out as if she's on Earth. She wants him to send her those pictures, so she can show them to her ladies in waiting and pretend she crossed over.

How little amuses the deranged.

River follows me about while I'm sourcing a decent signal. I'll fix it and give it a boost so that even when this direct link with Earth is lost it should still hold up. The sword is giving me a bit of interference though. I tell her so, and she just unbuckles her scabbard belt and lets it fall.

"Don't do that, I quite like you with the sword. Gives you that proper warrior air. You're being a goddess, you should be living up to it."

"I'm not a proper Morrigan. She'd have taken the Rigfennid's head off and knocked Niamh out with it.

"You might not be the proper, but you're the _real_."

"All those mean and nasty myths start out with somebody just doing what they have to get done."

Oh, she's not talking about the Morrigan anymore, is she? I hate when she does this. It's like she's teaching me lessons, which is _fine_, I have no problem with that but…

Well alright, tiny problem with it, but nothing I won't get over.

I would get over it a lot faster if I knew what she was trying to teach half the time. It's the _cryptic_ lessons I don't like.

It's the strangest thing. I _hear_, physically hear, as if she was present and spoke, Pond say, "Yeah, well, welcome to my world." And don't tell me I made it up, because I would never use such a trite and downright human phrase.

"It's just something to think about," River says. "To bear in mind."

Oh, it hasn't happened yet. Has it? To hell with it. "Put your sword back on, love. Please?"

"You have massive issues as regards powerful women. Anyway, it keeps annoying the horse."

"Well, get down off the horse and pick up the sword."

"I can't. I've crossed over that many times this last week I don't know _what_ side I'm on. I'm not touching ground, are you mad?"

"Well, then…"

"Oh, the horse is going on the Tardis. At least until I'm _well_ decompressed." She sees me worried and chips in, "Yes, you have a temporal decompression room."

"No, I don't, I jettisoned it along with-"

"The stables, ironically, but we reinstalled it. Or we will, anyway. Remember to go back and reinstall it."

"How much of this do you know in advance, River? Not just this one, I mean just lately."

"Tell you later."

"Yes, but how _much_ later?"

She's not listening anymore. She's trotted off to see how Jessica's getting on. Finn-person, it would seem, was nice to it when it was being scared. Still, alas, alack, oh, lackaday, it's time to leave this place forever. River is bringing Jessica back, and I go to get Rory from Niamh, who keeps hugging him, as if he is the great donor of her salvation, which he isn't. He just provided the phone, it was my wonderful perfect idea at just the right moment. Still, rather him than me, so I'm keeping my mouth shut.

Niamh grabs my hand, wants to know how she can ever thank me.

"Don't thank me yet," I tell her, jerking my head at Oisin McDonagh, "You're stuck with him now."

"Don't listen to him," Amy says, irritably. "I'm sure you'll be very happy, the pair of you."

I eye the Queen very earnestly, one last time, "Now, just before I leave, you're not going to attack Earth anymore, are you?" And I get a good solid straight promise of a No from her before we can walk away. Yes, I trust her; she'll discover Rory's extensive collection of mobile games soon, and even Oisin will have trouble getting a response out of her. I've seen it before, all over the universe. Snake II gets them every time.

"So," Amy says, "What's the grand exit plan, then? I know you two are coming out on the horse, but what about Rory?"

"Well, we're coming out on the horse because the horse is part Tir," River half-explains.

Jessica sighs and cracks a few stiff joints. Turns to Rory and says, "Is to be okay over its shoulder? Other arm am not good heretimes."


	15. Chapter 15

"Alright, I can't hold this anymore. Is _anybody_ else wondering what intergalactic mythological phone-sex is like?"

A collective groan. "For God's sake, River!"

"Sorry, Mum."

A moment's silence and then, collectively, "Yes."

The Tardis' temporal decompression chamber was designed to be used in instances during which the maintenance pilot suffered vortex exposure during repairs. With this in mind, it was patently _not _designed to hold five humans and a horse at once. The horse, in fairness, has sat itself down now, and Jessica is tucked into the corner behind it, asleep against its haunch, so they're not taking up as much room as they might have.

Poor girl. I think Rory tired her out. All that rich Tir prison food, no doubt. I tell him as much and he mutters at me that he wasn't fed. Amy wraps herself around his arm and snuggles up tight. She doesn't even _need_ to be here, but she insisted.

"So when did you first meet Oisin, then?" River asks. Either she's finished with her first little musing or it's become too disturbing for her.

"…Not sure. It was _well_ B.C., I know that much."

Rory squeezes his eyes shut. He's had a headache ever since he was nearly crushed. "But… No, he didn't look a day over sixty-five."

"And never will. How it happened was, I was on my way back to bring fire to the primitive world-"

"Oh, of course you were."

"I _was_, River. River doesn't believe me when I tell her that was me. You believe me, don't you Pond?"

"Nope."

"Well, I was on my way back for _something_, and he just smashed right on through the doors. Which is both how we met and how he survived his first crossing over shifting time. He was in the Tardis for half of it. Unfortunately I didn't know about the Tir and when I set him down at Earth I just… set him down. Stayed there a while, tried to reverse it but…"

"Oh, so you got waylaid with fruitless experiments, never made it back as far as primitive man, and they all figured out fire entirely independently. Yes, now I believe you."

"You're so horrible. Why are we married?"

"Because I was ending the world. You only did it to shut me up."

"Oh, alright. How about a nice shallow divorce, then? Keep things simple?"

"Not unless you want to give me half your Tardis."

"Over my dead body."

"Tempting…"

"Just you try it."

"Looks like you're stuck with me, then."

Somehow, a conversation like that can lead to a kiss. Ours not to question why, but that is _mental,_ isn't it?

Now, par for the course, Rory groans and rolls his head away. Pond, however, first time that I know of, just holds him tighter and grumbles, "We'll have to get used to this _sometime_."

"I've tried that, Amy, it's not happening."

"Then just ignore it."

And then the two of them become frankly ridiculous. I mean, she actually sits up, and pulls his face round to hers and _kisses_ him. River sees it too, from the corner of her eye, and breaks off from me. "Oh, now that _is_ digusting."

"I quite agree. Why on _Earth_ would you think we'd ever want to see that?"  
>"Ever."<br>"Ever." The temporal decompression chamber goes ding, which means we're done. I stand and throw open the door, and I drag the pair of them by the Rory towards it. "Out! Bad Ponds! And take the horse with you, he's finished too. You could try moving Jessica, but she weighs about the same as an elephant calf and I'd rather you just _left_, frankly."

I'm not sure they quite understand, but they go, Amy leading the horse up by the reins behind them. Jessica is unperturbed, just gently shifts her position to lean against the wall instead. As soon as they're gone I slam the door shut again. River breaks out laughing, and I myself end up leaning on the door handle just to stay upright.

"Do you ever get tired of winding up my parents?"

"No. And should such a time ever come to pass, I am charging you with the scared duty to shoot me on the spot." She accepts, but laughs again. Throws her head back, eyes shut, and it is, therefore, a while before she sees that I'm just looking at her.

"What?"  
>"Nothing. You look like Xena."<p>

"Given, but what's really wrong? Quicker question, when was the last time you saw me? It's clearly been bugging you."

Typical. _Bloody_ typical. She always has to see right through me, it's like a point of _pride_. And it's not enough for her just to see it either, oh no. She can't leave me my ego or anything. Has to come right out and _tell_ me she sees right through me.

"At the Tian Lu Quan."

"Ah. Wasn't wearing an eye-drive by any chance, was I?"

"One of you was. We're playing it a bit close to the wire, aren't we? All this hopping and doubling…"

"It's all arranged, the time-streams work out fine."

That's nice. Good of her to believe that I could be worried about such lofty things as the space-time continuum when I don't know where the other-her is or how to help her, only that she needs my help. "It's just… I'm not supposed to be here with you. I'm supposed to be somewhere else with you."

River smiles, takes my hand. "Trust me, my love, you're meant to be wherever you are."

"You don't understand, you needed me and I was too busy thinking I was clever to see it."

"But you _are_ clever. Anyway, we're sitting a _time_-_machine_, sweetie; do both."

There's something there. A tone on her voice I should be picking up on, but I don't know what it means. Something she's trying to tell me. And River's almost laughing again, I'm so thick about picking it up. "So? Where is it, then? Silence HQ, I mean."

"How should I know? _I_ haven't been there yet."

That italic. That italic is the key to all this. It means there's somebody else who _has_ been there. I'm almost laughing myself now, because she just can't hold it in anymore. Last time I saw her she wasn't laughing at all.

"I'm missing something really obvious, aren't I?"

"Oh, yes."

"I mean, something really, glaringly, flashing-lights-and-dancing-girls obvious, aren't I?"

River grins and finally relents then. Eases up to whisper in my ear, "The elephant in the room, my love."

Over her shoulder, one foot pawing in her sleep, Jessica twitches. Whatever her dreams are, she isn't laughing.

"Oh, Riversing," I quietly tell her, "smart is the new sexy."

She gets up, away from me. One hand on the door handle, the other reaches back for mine. "Tell me about it."

[Yeah. Skype saved the day. Don't worry, I'm fully prepared to fall upon my own pen for that one. Anyway, as so we came to the end. I've come a bit far to stop, so next week will probably happen whether anybody cares or not. But it will be called Marble Cold and be narrated variously by Pond and a sick little girl called Astrid. I'll say no more except it's going to be a little bit creepy and a whole lot sad. Preview soon as I can polish it up, so keep an eye out if you're still here.

And, if you're still here, well bloody done for putting up with me.

Hearts, Sally.

p.s. Ruth? Yes. Just yes. All kinds of yes. I am going to buy a twelve pack and keep them just especially for that purpose and _probably_ eat them before I can give any away. Here, take yours quicksharp. *gives*]


	16. MarbleCold Preview

_My name is Astrid Hardiwicke. I am ten and three-quarter years old and the doctor says I won't ever be eleven. He thought I couldn't hear him when he said that, but I could hear him. It's okay, though, I knew. They still keep treating me like I don't know. _

_ I am with my Friend above the ballroom. We're sitting on the gallery, even though I'm in my pyjamas. It's okay, I'm allowed to. Mum and Dad know. You can't get onto this gallery except through the secret door in my bedroom. It's my gallery. It's ours, me and my Friend. My house is full of secret doors and hallways and nobody except me knows them properly._

_ And my Friend, too, she knows them all. Because I know them, she knows them._

_ There's a ball on tonight. There's a ball on nearly every night. All the men are very handsome and wearing shiny dark suits, and all the women are dancing with them in beautiful gowns covered in lace and jewels. Me and my friend sit up here almost every night and watch them whirling around the floor, all glamorous and exciting. Mum and Dad put the balls on because they know I like to watch them and because I won't ever be eleven and because I'm sick and I'm not allowed to dance. Mum and Dad don't really dance except sometimes. They sit at the wall._

_ There are other dancers who don't actually dance. _

_ The ballroom is made of marble. It used to be one big block of marble and they hollowed out the middle. Mr Hannigan told me that. The gallery me and my Friend are sitting on is carved out of the marble, and all the tables and chairs and the little stage for the band below are carved out of the marble._

_ So are the other guests at the ball._

_ Even when there is nobody in the ballroom, it looks like there's a party. Because there are beautiful statues, a whole neighbourhood of them and they look just like real people. Some are in pairs and posed for the waltz, and there are young ladies grouped in one corner giggling about a gentleman sitting at one of the tables. There is a marble band that sits in amongst the real band, with perfect instruments with their strings and everything. There is a bad man talking to a pretty woman at the other end of the room, and she is blushing rose-stones and leaning away from him. A whole real world carved up around the outside, stone people_

_ My Friend is a stone person. _

_ She sits like me, with her legs out between the posts, watching downstairs. Everybody says she looks like me, but I don't think so, except she has green eyes like me. Mr Hannigan, who is the sculptor and who still lives in our house in his workshop downstairs, says he's very sorry I think that. He says he meant her to look just like me. But I don't think she does at all. Anyway, she can't be me, she's my Friend. And I don't always look sad the way she does. She can't help it because he carved her that way, but she can't smile even if she wants to. And she does sometimes._

_ When grown-ups talk about her they say they understand. They say she looks absolutely perfectly like a little girl who is longing to join the dance below and isn't allowed. Mr Hannigan smiles when they say that, so I suppose he meant for that to happen. The grown-ups say she looks like me too, which makes him happy, and if I'm there when they say it, he winks at me. Then they say that she is absolutely the finest of the stone people and I agree with them then because she is my Friend._

_ But tonight she doesn't want to be my friend anymore. She says I was bad and betrayed her. She says I promised never to tell anybody about how me and her can talk to each other sometimes, and how sometimes I feel her in the back of my head when I'm going around the secret house, all the extra trapdoors and corridors. She's right as well, I did promise, but I only told Mr Hannigan, and Mr Hannigan made her, so obviously I thought he knew everything already. I thought he made her that way so she could be my Friend properly and not just be a statue who's supposed to look like me and totally doesn't._

_ Only now she's not talking to me._

_ I wasn't even going to tell her about it only Mr Hannigan said something that made me worried and I felt guilty then._

_ He said he was going to call a doctor. And I have _loads_ of doctors, they come here all the time. There's one coming in the morning and I said he could just wait for that one. _

_ And then Mr Hannigan said it wasn't that kind of doctor. That it wasn't a doctor for me, but a doctor for my Friend. And I thought it was a joke because you can't get a doctor for a stone person because they don't get sick, they don't have proper bodies, and I told her this but she says I still shouldn't have talked about us being able to be proper Friends. She says she doesn't want a doctor and she doesn't need one. _

_ She sounds scared._

_ She shouldn't be scared. Doctors can't do anything to her. They can't make her say 'Aah' because she can't open her mouth and they can't take blood from her because she doesn't have any. The worst he can do is rap her on the head and she won't even be able to feel that because she's a stone person. And she gets to be eleven, and twelve, and all the other numbers because nothing can ever happen to her. _

_ She's being really stupid, so I'm going to bed. Except when I get up, I have to pull the edge of my pyjama top out of her hand. She does that sometimes. None of the other stone people ever move, but my Friend is special. Sometimes she holds my hand. _

_ 'Don't go away,' she says. Only she doesn't make a sound and her lips don't move. I just know she said it. 'I'm not ready yet. We can't let that Doctor come here, Astrid.'_


End file.
